Fallout
by r4ven3
Summary: This fic is multi-chapter (of 21 chapters) and set in S10, beginning with the outcome of the Tribunal into Harry's "behaviour" re Albany. While this begins in canon, it doesn't stay there, and I have added a smattering of other characters.
1. Chapter 1

**~ The Sentence ~**

Ruth closes her eyes for a moment before opening them again. All is as it was before she'd closed her eyes for a second or two. The words she'd just heard spoken were not part of some twisted daydream. She focuses on the back of Harry's head. He doesn't move; he doesn't even flinch. Before the decision of the Tribunal was handed down he had turned, glancing over those present, until his eyes had settled upon her. It was only then that he turned back to face the Tribunal. Having seen her, he was ready.

" _We cannot overlook the impulsivity of your actions, Sir Harry, and while we acknowledge the importance of Ms Evershed to the Service as a whole, we find your actions in no way justified, nor are they acceptable to this tribunal. Thus, our decision is unanimous. We cannot allow you to return to your position as Section Head in Counter-terrorism. So, as of 5 pm today, you will no longer be in the employ of the Intelligence Service, and -"_

And that is when the roaring in her ears had begun, and Ruth had closed her eyes, hoping that when she again opened them, her world would have once again turned right side up.

Harry has been sacked; handed a P45; shown a red card; tossed out with the rubbish. Ruth draws in a deep breath before slowly and quietly releasing it. She can't take her eyes from the back of his head. He still hasn't moved. He sits statue-still, having reacted to the delivery of his sentence with his usual dignity, while other people in the courtroom quickly stand and leave. The members of the tribunal have already filed from the room. Two men pass by her, both laughing, making plans to meet for lunch. How could they? Don't they know what this means, how important this decision is? Don't they realise how _wrong_ it is? A good man, a decent man has been tossed aside for someone younger and more compliant - more manageable - and all these people can do is make arrangements for lunch.

Ruth had expected Harry to receive a rap over the knuckles; perhaps a hefty fine, or an extended period of unpaid leave. She had even steeled herself for a custodial sentence. She'd not been prepared for him to be thrown out like he had no value, like an old pair of shoes with holes in the soles. Feeling tears forming, she drops her head, staring at her hands clasped in her lap. Once everyone has left, the courtroom falls quiet.

"Ruth?" She knows that voice so well. She lifts her head to see Harry leaning over the two empty chairs beside her. "I suspect they need this room for something else," he says quietly, reaching towards her with one hand.

This is the first she's heard his voice in six weeks, and it shakes her to her core. "I'm so, so sorry," she whispers. "It just isn't fair."

"Come," he says, somewhat impatiently, dropping his hand to his side, and stepping back, leaving room for her to join him, "let's get out of here."

So, Ruth stands, joining Harry, to accompany him from the room and the building.

They are soon outside, where it is overcast, but bright. "My car's across the road," he says, squinting. "I'll give you a lift to Thames House."

Inside his car, Ruth buckles up, and then watches him as he does the same, and then starts the car. "Have you nothing to say?" she says, as he reverses, and then enters the flow of traffic, all his actions fluid and natural.

"What's there to say?" This time he glances across the cabin, and Ruth sees sadness in his eyes, and in the slant of his shoulders she reads resignation. _I know this man so well_ , she thinks. "My fate has been determined, and the best thing for me at this moment is to accept it. Who knows? It may be the best thing that's ever happened to me."

Ruth is part sad, part incensed. How can he be so accepting, so unmoved by this? Is he not angry? How could he not be angry? And what about his career .. his reputation .. his many years of service?

"I'm ... furious," she says at last, staring ahead at the stream of traffic ahead of them.

"I know you are."

She turns towards him, and seeing his calm expression, she feels even angrier. "Why aren't you?"

"Angry?" Ruth feels his eyes on her, but she just can't look his way. She nods. "Because I'm tired, Ruth. I'm tired of ... stupid rules. I'm tired from the struggle, and given all the options available to the tribunal, I consider I came out of that quite well."

" _Quite well_? You've been publically humiliated, Harry. Do you not care about that?"

"Not a lot, no. Right at this moment, what the public thinks of me is not top priority. I know why I did what I did, and so do they. Were I to again be faced with Lucas demanding I hand over Albany in exchange for your life, I'd not hesitate to do it all over again."

Ruth shakes her head and stares through the window on her side of the car. His six weeks of suspension must have made him soft. Perhaps being alone for so long has caused him to lose touch with reality, the reality being that in their business there is never time for the personal, and that saving her life may not even serve to benefit him. And what is to become of them? Once he is out of the service - in a little under four hours - will they still see one another? Will he even want to see her ... his enduring love for her having led him to this point in his life?

These and many other questions have still to be answered, although Ruth is afraid that after today she may never see Harry again.

* * *

For the last time, Harry parks his car in his own reserved parking space in the basement of Thames House. After he cuts the engine, they both sit quietly, contemplating the significance of the moment.

"You'll no longer have your own special parking spot," Ruth says, stating the obvious.

"Special parking spots do not a life make," he says, quietly contemplating the concrete wall in front of them. "I have no regrets, Ruth. You must know that saving your life was worth so much more to me than a patch of concrete in the basement of Thames House."

Ruth has nothing to say to that. It is unlike Harry to be this honest and open in her presence. Their conversations are almost always about work. It's just that the investigation into Harry's actions has crossed the line into the personal, forcing them to acknowledge the real reasons behind him having given away Albany.

One thing of which Ruth is certain is that Harry loves her, just as she has loved him for almost as long as he has loved her. It is a silent, private love which surges and then wanes, never quite fading away, always present, always reminding them of what they mean to one another. They both avoid talking about it, have never openly acknowledged it or even acted upon it, but it's there, a presence between them. Like a shadow of something not yet experienced, this love silently waits for them, sighing when they are brave enough to venture closer, then slipping back into the crevices and cracks of their shared past when a misunderstanding arises, and harsh words are spoken, words which can never be taken back. Their love for one another is a sylph - something imagined, while only having form in the hearts of them both. They each know it, and privately accept it, but they daren't speak of it, for fear that love will dissolve, melting in the air between them, leaving them bereft. While they silently acknowledge - each to themselves - that this love lies waiting, then they have something warm and real to look forward to. Were they to talk of it, to try to work with it together, the possibility of them dropping it, shattering it in its fragility is just too great a risk to take, the fallout too vast a tragedy for them to bear.

So they stumble along, sometimes together, and often apart, wondering whether ... or when .. they will ever let down their guards long enough to allow that love to grow.

"I suppose ..." Harry says at last, turning his head to look at Ruth.

"It's time," she replies.

"Shall we?" he adds, moving to open the door on his side.

They travel to the fifth floor in the lift in silence, standing side by side, not touching. This is the last time they will travel thus. Today Ruth is mentally listing their last times, perhaps so she can draw on them some time in the future, a time when she has need of a memory of an enduring love, a love never fully expressed.

* * *

Word of the outcome of the tribunal has already reached Section D. Ruth suspects Erin had been notified even before the sentence was handed down, perhaps revelling in the power to be gained from being the one to inform the rest of the team. The woman looks pleased with herself as she greets Harry, allowing him to enter what is now officially her office, while other members of the section hover close by.

"So we're stuck with Erin," announces Dimitri, who looks none too pleased.

"And here was I, looking forward to impressing the great Sir Harry Pearce," muses Calum, sidling up to Ruth, entering her personal space.

On hearing Tariq's voice, Ruth turns from Calum, to see the young techie's dark eyes clouded by sadness. "Things will never be the same again," he says quietly, for Ruth's ears only. "It's the end of an era."

Ruth nods. She couldn't have expressed it better herself.

"What will Harry do with all that time on his hands?" The voice belongs to Sheila, manager of the admin team, and long term member of Section D.

Ruth turns towards Sheila, who is watching the goings-on in Harry's office - Erin standing beside the desk, while Harry goes through the desk drawers, removing his possessions. "He hasn't said," Ruth replies. Just thinking about Harry at home tomorrow, not being able to come into work, sends Ruth across the Grid floor to her desk. When in distress, her long-term strategy is always to occupy her mind with work.

* * *

It's barely three o-clock when a rumble of chatter from outside the office has Ruth lifting her head. Harry is saying goodbye to his former team, and Ruth is about to join them when her desk phone buzzes. Should she take the call, or leave it to bid farewell to Harry?

She decides to take the call.

"Ruth Evershed," she says, her eyes following Harry as he shakes hands with Calum - whom he has only just met - and then Tariq.

"Ms Evershed ... or can I call you Ruth?"

Ruth doesn't recognise the voice. "It all depends who you are," she says cautiously.

"I'm sorry. I should have said. It's Ian Ross here. I'm the senior intelligence analyst in Section H at Vauxhall Cross. I have just ... come up with a solution which may interest you."

So Ruth listens to Ian Ross, and as she does she takes her eyes from the image of Harry nodding sagely, his expression inscrutible, while Calum talks. She can't bear to watch. As Tariq had stated, it's the end of an era.

When her phone conversation has come to an end, and she still isn't sure what it is Ian Ross has been telling her, the click on the line tells her that he has hung up. Ruth carefully places the phone's receiver in its cradle. When she looks up, the rest of the team are standing in an untidy huddle just inside the doorway through which Harry has already left. While she was on the phone to Ian Ross, she had missed seeing Harry leave the Grid for the last time.


	2. Chapter 2

**~ The Aftermath ~**

Ruth hadn't slept well. She'd been wide awake at midnight, hoping for a call from Harry, debating whether to call him, and in the end falling asleep on the sofa. She'd woken with a stiff neck and in a grumpy mood. When she arrived on the Grid thirty minutes late, no-one seemed to notice, which was further cause for irritation. Harry would have watched her arriving, knowing she was late, and he would not have let it go without comment. He'd have lifted his wrist theatrically, glancing at his watch, before staring through the glass at her, his jaw firm. His message would be clear - tardiness, lateness, and any other variations on slovenliness were not tolerated by him.

She has only just woken up her desk computer when she is joined by Tariq, who appears to have slept as badly as her.

"Harry's sacking made the third page in two of the morning papers, and the front page of one," he says.

The _papers_? Harry's sacking had made the papers? " _Really_? Has nothing else happened in this city in the last twenty-four hours?"

Tariq pulls up a chair and sits, leaning his elbows on the edge of Ruth's desk. "We-ell ... maybe not his sacking, so much as the reason he was sacked."

"You mean me." Ruth stops what she's doing, and stares into Tariq's dark eyes.

Tariq nods. "You don't want to look it up," he says. "I'm just telling you in case there's fallout."

"Fallout? Like what?"

"You might get a call from the press."

"How can anyone in the press possibly know the outcome of yesterday's tribunal, much less my identity? The tribunal was closed to the press."

Tariq utters a noise which sounds like `hah'. "Someone must have blabbed to them. But there's good news."

"I fail to see how anything to do with Harry's sacking is good news."

"That's not what I mean, Ruth. The good news is that neither of your names is mentioned."

Ruth catches movement from behind Tariq, as Dimitri's tall frame looms into view. Ruth's stomach tips as he lifts a newspaper so that she can read the front page: _What Would You Do For Love?_ the headline screams.

"No names are mentioned, but they're comparing you to Christine Keeler, whoever the hell she is," Dimitri says, dropping the offending newspaper behind him once he sees Ruth's horrified expression. "Even if they didn't name you, you're famous, Evershed."

"I'm nothing like Christine Keeler. During the Cold War she slept with a Russian diplomat at the same time she was having an affair with one of our government ministers."

"Together?" Dimitri's eyes glaze over.

"Of course not. She .. "

Ruth can't handle any more. She's been at work for less than ten minutes, and already the conversation is veering into questionable territory. She quickly stands, brushes past Tariq and Dimitri, and heads to the women's toilets. Once there, she enters an open cubicle, and sits on the closed lid of the toilet, dropping her head into her hands, pushing her fingers through her hair in a gesture of despair. She needs to ring Harry. Hearing his voice will soothe her, and provide the strength she needs to get through this. In her hurry to get away from Tariq and Dimitri - and the offending news headline - she'd left her phone on her desk. So she waits for what she considers is a reasonable amount of time before leaving the cubicle to wash her face and hands. She takes her time drying her hands and face, and tidying her hair, and only then does she return to the Grid.

She's relieved to see that both Tariq and Dimitri are back at their own work stations, and neither man appears to notice her as she passes. They have been replaced by Erin, who is sitting in the chair Tariq had occupied beside her desk.

"Erin?" Ruth begins. "I'm sorry I was late. I didn't sleep well."

"I have a suggestion," Erin says quickly, ignoring Ruth's apology, "but first, has Ian Ross tried to contact you?"

Ruth nods, surprised. "How did you know?"

"He's just rung me. I imagine he told you he wants to poach you for Section H in Six."

Ruth feels her shoulders slump under the weight of the implications of Ian Ross's request. She sighs heavily. "He didn't exactly say what he wanted. He just rambled on about being two analysts down, and needing someone with experience, and now that Harry's no longer here, how am I finding working in my section? He didn't ask me directly; he alluded to it, and I don't like that. I told him I'd get back to him."

"And will you?"

Ruth shakes her head. For six weeks she'd missed Harry, hoping he'd manage to wing his way through the tribunal so that he could return to his own job, in his own office, seated behind his own desk. Ruth doesn't mind Erin, but she's not Harry. While she may be ultra organised, efficient, and all the many other adjectives valued by those at the top, Erin's leadership skills could do with work, and the woman hasn't a fraction of Harry's passion. Ruth doesn't know if she can continue to work in an environment which hasn't Harry in it. To continue working on the Grid without Harry is like expecting to be able to drive a car with no engine. She misses Harry's personal touch, how he'd consult her when a situation troubled or overwhelmed him. She misses his trust in her; she misses his sure moral compass, as misdirected as it could sometimes be; she misses his voice, the brilliance of his eyes, and his warmth. She misses Harry. It's that simple. Without his sturdy presence, the Grid is empty, all her hard work bordering on being meaningless. Just one unwise move, one decision based upon emotion, rather than reason, and he's out ... for good. It isn't right, and nor is it fair. Harry's decades of service have been thrown away, discarded, along with the man himself.

"I have a suggestion to make," Erin continues quietly. "Don't give me an answer today. Sleep on it for a day or two. Forget Ian Ross; I'll deal with him. Before he left yesterday, Harry told me he's going away for a couple of weeks. He said he needed to get out of London in an attempt to regroup. My suggestion is that you do the same. Take a week or two off -" and when Ruth opens her mouth to speak, Erin holds up her hand. "Hear me out," she continues. "You've had a tough time of late, and the press are gloating over Harry's dismissal, and while they haven't mentioned names, it wouldn't be hard to discover yours and Harry's identities -"

"There's nothing between Harry and me," Ruth says defensively, her voice flat and cold.

"Perhaps, but whether there is or not, the story behind Harry's dismissal is providing fodder for the press, and they're blowing it out of proportion, as they always do. You both need to lay low for a while."

And on that small bombshell, Erin stands before returning to her office. Ruth sits as though stunned. Ruth needs to work. She loves her work. It's just that without Harry at the helm, in his office, safely behind the plate glass window, nothing is quite the same. Ruth sighs heavily, looking around her. Who is she kidding? Without Harry managing Section D, her work, while satisfying, will no longer have those electrifying moments which occur unexpectedly, and which originate with some comment or decision of Harry's. Harry had relied on her, but he'd also challenged her, and often he'd left her feeling outraged and annoyed. Those days are gone, never to happen again.

In a nutshell, since Harry had been suspended, Ruth no longer finds her work stimulating. Erin is right. Some time away from the Grid would be best, just until her world stops spinning out of control.

* * *

By Friday, Ruth has come to a decision. She has informed Erin, who supports her decision to take a minimum of a week away from work, and so on Friday evening she is sitting on the sofa in her living room, the sound on the TV muted, wondering what she should do next. The big question is where she should go to `lay low'. She could visit friends and relatives in Exeter, but that would hardly be a holiday. She needs to get out of London, but where?

It is almost nine o'clock, and Ruth is in her cramped kitchen making herself a pot of tea, wondering about her former flatmate, Beth Bailey, and whether she's found work, when her mobile phone rings. She knows who she wants to be on the other end of that call.

Leaving her pot of tea to steep, she hurries back to the living room and grabs her phone. She experiences a brief moment of disappointment when on the caller display is a number she doesn't recognise. "Ruth speaking," she says, preparing to end the call if it's a member of the press.

"Ruth," and with that one word, Ruth sits back on her sofa, and runs her fingers through her hair. Her world, having slid off its axis to careen wildly through space at a speed which had left her almost unable to breathe, immediately rights itself. Just that one word, spoken by a familiar voice, is all it took.

"I had no idea it was you."

"I had to turn off my mobile. I'm using a pay as you go phone."

He has no need to explain any of that. He is having two weeks away from London, and he needs to cut communication with everyone who knows him ... everyone other than her, that is. "Where are you?" she asks warily.

"On the south coast. I came down here hoping it would be warmer, but if anything it's even colder than London. It's bloody August, and I'm wearing a thick jacket. Only in England." When he hesitates, Ruth knows he didn't ring her just to deliver a weather update. Harry is about to ask her something. She even believes she knows what he's about to say. "I rang Erin earlier. There was something I'd forgotten to mention to her about JIC meetings. I'll not be missing those." Again he hesitates. "She told me that you've taken leave for a week -"

"`As long as I need' were her words. I haven't taken leave since my return from Cyprus."

Her mention of Cyprus has them both falling silent. Some shared memories take longer than others to fade, while memories of certain events cannot be erased, no matter how hard they try, and the guilt never quite goes away. "Ruth," he says at last, "do you have plans ... you know, for your leave?"

Without coming out and saying what he means, Ruth already has a fair idea what he is suggesting .. or not suggesting, because he is unlikely to come out and say: _Ruth, would you like to stay with me for a week?_ Away from work, Harry is never that direct .. not with her.

"I haven't, but I need to get out of London .. just for a while."

"It's just that ..."

"It's just that what, Harry?"

She hears him sigh heavily. Like normal, he expects her to understand what it is he is trying to say, while having difficulty finding the right words.

"Would you like to stay here .. with me? I'm renting a beach house. It's close to the sea, and while it's not exactly luxurious, it has three bedrooms, as well as hot and cold running -"

"Yes," she says quickly.

"Pardon?"

"I said yes. I'd like .. to stay with you ... for a while."

In the long silence that follows, Ruth is sure she can hear Harry smiling.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Just to let you know that for the next few weeks I intend updating twice weekly - generally mid-week and then Sat/Sun (Australian time). I am currently writing Ch 16, so there are ample chapters still to come.**

* * *

 **~ Escape ~**

Their reunion is low key, but Ruth had expected nothing more. She and Harry are not prone to displays of emotion. They do and say what is necessary, and nothing more. Through the window of her carriage she sees Harry waiting on the platform of the train station in Hastings before he sees her. When she approaches him, she has the advantage of watching him unseen. Dressed in casual clothes, over which he wears a thick, navy blue, mid-thigh-length jacket, he appears softer and far less intimidating than the man who'd worn a suit every day of his working life.

When Ruth touches his arm, he spins around to see it is her, and he sighs heavily his relief. "Here, let me take your bag," he says, noticing the bag she drags behind her.

"Careful, it has one dodgy wheel," Ruth points out, moving her shoulder bag further up her left shoulder.

Ruth almost has to run to keep up as Harry leads her off the platform, and through to the carpark. He carefully places her bag in the boot of his car, and then opens the passenger side door for her. Harry turns the car towards the south-west, and before long they are heading out of Hastings along the coast road.

"It's so good to see you," he says, glancing across to where she sits, taking in the scenery.

"It was only four days ago that we last saw one another, Harry."

"That's half a lifetime. Besides, I was in an odd space that day."

Ruth nods. She knows that. As she is observing him, Harry is still in an odd space. As they drive through Hastings Harry gives her a running commentary on the features as they pass them. She barely hears his words; she is revelling in the sound of his voice, warm and comforting and familiar as a blanket.

They are well out of Hastings when he turns his car down a narrow lane which runs parallel to the shoreline. Between the lane and the sea are beach houses in all states of repair.

"Why are beach houses painted in such garish colours?" she says, as Harry manoeuvres his car through a narrow gateway which leads into the small back yard of a beach house. The house is painted dark green, and the gutters, downpipes and window frames are all in various shades of yellow, while the roof is a dark grey.

"It's easier to give directions to visitors if your house stands out," Harry says, stepping out of the car. Pulling her case behind him, he leads her through the downstairs, where one room leads directly to another, well-used furniture filling the rooms. She follows him up the stairs. "The bedrooms are up here," he says. "That one's mine," he says as they pass a doorway, and Ruth glances inside the room. All she notices is that the bed is made. "This is your bedroom," he says, leading her into the room next door to his, where a double bed dominates the room.

Ruth moves to the window which overlooks the coast. The sea is calm, the water lapping gently on the pebbled beach. It is peaceful, and apart from the sound of a motor boat chugging by, it is quiet. "This is nice," she says, turning to see Harry watching her. "Thank you for offering this room to me. I'll pay you, of course."

Harry is leaning against the door frame, his face relaxed in a half smile, and when she mentions paying him, he stands up straight. "You bloody well will not, Ruth. I should be paying you for your company."

"That sounds a bit ... off," she says, frowning.

"It wasn't meant to come out like that. I'm happy to have your company. I imagine we have much to talk about." He nods towards the small wardrobe and chest of drawers. "You can unpack. The bathroom and loo are just down the hallway. I'll make us some tea."

And he turns, and disappears downstairs.

* * *

While they'd entered the house through the kitchen, Ruth had not paid it much attention. It is cramped, with a hotchpotch of benches along two walls, and an ancient sink beneath the window on the back wall, while a rectangular wooden table occupies most of the floor space in the room. As Harry had warned her, the house is hardly luxurious, but it is comfortable, and Ruth has to admit it has a homey feel to it. Wooden floors are covered with an array of mats and rugs in all colours. Harry stands beside a chair which he has pulled out for her. On the table is a pot of tea, two mugs, and milk and sugar.

When they are both seated, Ruth notices the scraps of plastic and metal in a small pile next to his elbow. "Is that a puzzle of some kind?" she asks, nodding towards the scraps of black plastic.

"That's one way of putting it. It's what's left of my phone after I threw it against the bathroom wall," he says quietly. "It's my personal phone. I made the mistake of turning it on this morning, out of curiosity, only to find there was a missed call from my son. So I rang him. He'd seen the newspaper article on my dismissal, wondered was it me, and when I said - unwisely - that it was, he made a comment about you which ... offended me deeply."

"What did he say?"

"What does it matter, Ruth? He doesn't know you, has never met you, and so his opinion of you is hardly likely to be accurate. I'm afraid I lost my temper with him, and when the call ended - somewhat abruptly - I threw the phone against the tiles in the bathroom. I'd just finished shaving when I rang him." Harry pushes the scraps which remain of his phone further from him.

Ruth has been holding her mug of tea between the fingers of both hands, and staring at the surface of her drink. For reasons she can't fully fathom, she feels a pang of guilt for coming between Harry and his son. "I'm sorry," she says quietly, glancing up at him.

"It's hardly your fault, Ruth. If it's anyone's fault it's mine, and the people who call themselves journalists who thought it their duty to print the story."

"It was most likely the editors," Ruth adds. "Are you and your son normally on good terms?"

Harry sighs, carefully placing his mug back on the table. "Of late we'd been making good progress. We'd been talking to one another every few weeks, and then when he called you ... what he called you, I just lost it. I could have reprimanded him for his choice of words, and maintained control, but ..."

"He assumed I was something like a call girl," Ruth ventures, embarrassed by her own ineptitude.

"The words he used were `casual shag'. I told him you were neither casual, nor were you a shag, and when he suggested I was lying I just .. lost it."

They sit in silence sipping their tea. Ruth would like to be able to wave a magic wand and make things right between Harry and his son, but she can't. It's Harry's problem, and it's down to him to sort it out. His son made a huge assumption about her and Harry - one which was so far off the mark to be ridiculous - and now Harry will have to work hard if he is to mend the rift between them.

"How do you occupy yourself since you've been here?" Ruth asks, after they've sat for some minutes in silence.

"I've been here a little under three days, so I haven't yet had a chance to find out. I've spent a lot of my time thinking ... about everything." Harry glances up at her meaningfully, so that Ruth has a fair idea about what has been occupying his thoughts. "There's a lot to think about. Plus, I like to read; reading forces me to be still, and each day I've taken time out to walk. While I was suspended I walked almost every day. I find that I feel better - calmer - when I walk regularly."

"I also like to walk," Ruth says, "but mostly my walking is to and from public transport."

"Then we'll takes walks together," Harry says, his eyes holding hers.

* * *

After a meal of pork chops and vegetables, cooked by Harry, Ruth insists she help him with the dishes, and tidying the kitchen. The living room is at the front of the house, with a large window overlooking the sea. Ruth is relieved that there is no TV, and so they are having to talk to one another.

"Do you know who owns this house?" she asks. She has chosen to sit on a wide sofa beneath the window, while Harry sits in a winged armchair, lifting the whiskey bottle towards her in an unspoken question. Ruth turns towards him, and noting his offer, she shakes her head.

"I do, which is how I was able to get it at such short notice. It's owned by the former husband of my ex-wife's sister."

Ruth frowns as she works through the relationship to Harry of the owner. The house's owner is his former brother-in-law, or more correctly, his ex-wife's former brother-in-law. "You still see them?"

"No. Not the sister. She's with husband-number-three, but Kym is a decent sort, and when my former wife and I separated, he offered me this place as a hide-away ... for when London and Jane and her parents became too much for me. Kym is an accountant with a law firm, and he lets me have this for a song." Harry lifts his glass towards Ruth in a mock toast - mock because Ruth is nursing a mug of coffee between her hands. "I've been coming here for a week almost every August since the late eighties. No-one would think to look for me here, which is one of its main attractions."

"Do your children know you stay here?"

"I've never told them. We never stayed here when I was married to their mother. She hated this place." Harry takes a sip of whiskey, all the while watching Ruth. "I've never told anyone what I've just told you, Ruth."

"Your secret's safe with me."

"I know it is. I suppose you could say I'm testing you."

Ruth frowns, unsure as to the exact nature of the test.

"Most modern women wouldn't stay in a place like this, and I was worried that once you saw it, you'd insist I take you straight back to the train station."

They watch one another, their true feelings hidden behind tightly controlled expressions. Ruth would never have run from this opportunity to stay with Harry, and to get to know him away from work. She'd been surprised, and even shocked that he'd asked her, and she's not about to back down, just because they're not staying in a nice hotel. The beach house is comfortable, and it has all they need.

* * *

When Ruth covers her yawn with her hand, Harry notices. They have been sitting quietly, saying little. Ruth has a book open on her lap, but she's not really reading it. She's enjoying the evening with Harry, wondering whether, were they ever to find a way to be together, this would be how they spend their evenings.

"You don't have to stay up just to keep me company," he says quietly, watching her closely. "I'm used to my own company."

She has to ask. She'll never be able to sleep were she not to ask. "Harry ... why did you ask me to stay with you .. here?"

His expression gives away nothing. "I would have thought that obvious," he says at last.

"Not to me."

"I asked you to stay with me because for the first time since we've known one another we're not divided and separated by our professional roles."

"What you're saying is that we're now on equal footing."

"Hardly. You're employed, while I'm not."

"But you're no longer my boss, Harry."

"That's what I'm saying," he says quietly, all the while watching her. "I thought this a fine opportunity for us to get to know one another as the people we are, rather than the roles we had at work." He carefully places his empty glass on the low table beside his chair. "We have just been through a long separation, and I don't know about you, but I found it difficult .. not seeing you each day."

Ruth nods. She is about to suggest he elaborate on his carefully constructed, deliberately controlled answer, when she thinks better of it. Perhaps it's best they take things slowly. God knows, throughout their long acquaintance they've moved at the speed of a heavily drugged sloth. Another week, or month, or year can hardly hurt them. Besides, she suspects they both understand what he is deliberately not saying. She suspects he'd like to say: _For two people who love one another as we do, we need to take this opportunity to become closer._ Harry would never be that forthright, not with her. As is their way, they are still speaking in riddles only the two of them understand.

Ruth closes the book on her lap and stands. "I'll turn in now. Goodnight, Harry. Sleep well."

"Goodnight, Ruth." Harry stands, but she has already turned from him, and has reached the doorway. As she quickly leaves the room, she doesn't look back.

She climbs the stairs to her bedroom, and despite taking time over a shower, and preparing for bed, when Harry climbs the stairs to his bedroom, Ruth's door is closed, and she is already asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**~ Overcoming Barriers ~**

Ruth wakes to a quiet house. Downstairs in the kitchen there is no sign of Harry, and when she looks through the window to the back yard, his car is gone. Maybe he's gone out for milk, but opening the fridge door, she sees two one litre containers of milk. She gazes around the kitchen, but there is no note. On the bench next to the fridge a toaster stands beside an electric kettle, so she turns on the kettle, and then looks through the cupboards for bread, finding nothing but an almost empty bread packet with one stale end of the loaf. She'll have to settle for a coffee for breakfast.

She is about to make her second coffee when in her peripheral vision she sees Harry's car slide through the gate and into the back yard. She watches while he carries four plastic bags of groceries from the car to the back door.

Seeing her standing beside the kettle, he glances towards her apologetically. "I'm sorry there was no bread, or anything much else. I had last night's meal sorted, but I hadn't planned any further than that. I expected you to have had a lie in, and -"

"Lie in? I haven't had a lie in since the last time I was away sick."

"Which was, as I remember, some time in 2005. I have croissants," he says, lifting the smaller of the bags. "I needed to replace my broken phone, so while I was there I visited Greggs, and the supermarket."

They sit at the kitchen table, each with a fresh cup of coffee, and an assortment of croissants on a plate between them.

"I suppose I need to leave the chocolate ones for you," Ruth says quietly, choosing an almond criossant, and placing it delicately on her plate.

"Not at all. Of course, chocolate is my preference, but I'll eat whatever you leave me, Ruth."

Ruth contemplates his answer, thinking it an odd thing for Harry to be saying, when there's a knock on the back door, and a woman's voice calls out, "Yoo-hoo. Harry, are you in there?"

Ruth smiles slowly, watching Harry as he glances across the table to her, lifting one side of his mouth apologetically, before getting to his feet, and to the door.

"Marilyn," he says, opening the door, so that Ruth has a glimpse of dark blond, wavy hair, and a bright red anorak. "Lovely to see you," he says.

"I brought some eggs. My brother brought me three dozen, and I only need two, so I thought you might like the extra dozen." Ruth has taken her eyes from the conversation taking place at the door, when it seems that Marilyn has seen her. "Oh ... you have company. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -"

Harry takes a step back so that the two women can see one another, while not allowing the door to open fully. "Marilyn, this is Ruth. She's staying with me." Ruth nods and smiles, but doesn't speak.

"Oh, how lovely," Marilyn prattles on, "are you two friends?"

"We're just eating breakfast," he says, stepping towards the doorway, effectively blocking Ruth's view of the garrulous Marilyn. Ruth notes that he hadn't answered the question about them being friends .. or something else altogether. Ruth suspects Harry doesn't know how to describe their relationship in one word, and that Marilyn has designs on Harry.

"Then I won't keep you, Harry. Enjoy the eggs," she says, and as quickly as she'd arrived, she disappears down the back yard.

Harry has closed the door, and places the eggs on the sink, before joining Ruth at the table. He gives her eye contact, a little embarrassed. "Marilyn lives next door. She stays there for most of the summer months ... since her husband died. Usually her mother stays with her."

"I thought you were a trifle short with her."

"I don't want to encourage her. I suspect she's the kind of woman who'd have difficulty accepting no for an answer."

"You didn't even thank her for the eggs."

"I know," he says gently. "I feel a bit bad about that, but I was afraid she'd want to come in and talk to you. I'm not planning to share you with anyone." His words have Ruth sitting up straight, and gently putting down the last half of her croissant. "Don't get me wrong, Ruth. I invited you here because I want us to spend some uninterrupted time together, and Marilyn represents an interruption. I invited you here for all the reasons I shared with you last night. I meant it. I can handle Marilyn. I think she's lonely, especially since her husband died, but I'm not about to let her into my life out of kindness. I have my limits."

He certainly does. "Maybe she sees you as being lonely, also," she offers quietly, again picking up her croissant.

"I expect she does, but that's not reason enough for me to allow her to elbow her way into my life. I know she means well, but I find her enthusiasm and overt friendliness rather irritating."

Of course he does. Harry doesn't do enthusiasm, and he definitely doesn't do friendliness. He does caution rather well, and he can be abrupt to the point of rudeness. He could occasionally be described as gung ho, as well as driven, but Ruth could never accuse him of being enthusiastic, or friendly. Harry is melancholic, while being true and loyal to that which he values, which includes the people closest to him. That is enough for her, and if and when it isn't, then it will have to be. Harry is ... Harry, and so far, she quite likes him the way he is.

They finish their breakfast in silence. Harry doesn't wish to dwell on Marilyn's unexpected visit, and Ruth knows it's best she doesn't indulge her own innate curiosity about the woman next door.

"On the way back from the shops I heard today's forecast for the south coast," Harry says, once he has finished eating, and is pressing a finger to the croissant crumbs on his plate. "Rain is forecast from mid afternoon onwards, so I suggest that between now and lunch we take a long walk."

Ruth is only slightly intimidated by his description of a _long_ walk. She could ask him how long is long, but being so much younger than Harry, she should be able to keep up. "I'd like that," she says, and she means it. She and Harry have only ever walked along the Thames Embankment together, or along Millbank, and as enjoyable as that was, it wasn't a beach walk, and they were always having to watch the time. On this day, all they'll have to watch is the sea and the clouds ... and each other.

* * *

A light breeze blows off the sea, but unlike the previous days, the air is mild rather than cold. Harry leads Ruth along the walking path which runs between the foreshore and the front fences of the row of beach houses.

"Maybe it won't rain after all," Ruth muses.

"Don't bet on it," Harry replies. He's wearing a different jacket, one which is lightweight, his hands stuffed into the pockets.

Ruth mirrors Harry by stuffing her own hands into the pockets of her anorak. She leaves the hood down, preferring to feel the breeze on her cheeks. "Have you thought much about your life after Mi5?" she asks carefully, after they've been walking in easy silence for some minutes. Harry had taken a few minutes to adjust and adapt his stride to match Ruth's, and they are comfortable enough in one another's company to endure long silences.

"Not really. I thought I might leave that until I'm back in London. Thankfully they didn't strip me of my pension, and I've managed to squirrel away quite a tidy sum in a private pension fund, so I don't need a job. It's just that ..."

".. you're too young to be idle for long."

"I don't know about that, Ruth. I quite like being here with you."

Ruth feels herself smiling. She can't help it. Knowing Harry wants to be with her, and is not panicking about his future makes her happy.

They walk along the path until it reaches a dead end, after which Harry leads her down to the beach, and they continue to walk parallel to the shoreline.

"It's slower going along here," he says, "but being so close to the water is invigorating."

Ruth is prepared to believe him, but only marginally. The beach is hardly beautiful. There are few people out, although there are a number of small boats on the water, some heading out to sea, while others cruise at a distance, parallel to the beach. She glances at Harry to see he still has his hands stuffed into his pockets, and his eyes are trained ahead.

"Are we headed anywhere in particular," she asks, "or is this one of these walks where we just walk until we're tired?"

She looks up at him to see he's looking at her in amusement. "We're headed somewhere. I don't want to tell you about it until we get there. I discovered it by accident."

They trudge along the beach for another twenty minutes or so until, after navigating a headland, ahead of them looms a line of rocks, forming a barrier to their progress.

"I don't think we're meant to go any further, Harry," she says, wondering where this surprise is.

"Follow me," he says, removing his hands from his pockets, and reaching out to take her hand. His hand is warm, and completely engulfs her smaller hand. He leads them to a pile of rocks which form haphazard steps to the top. "You go first," he says, "and if you fall, I can catch you."

Ruth gives him a _you've got to be kidding_ look, but he's not moved. He stands near the first rock, and then tips his head towards the next rock. His unspoken instruction is clear.

Ruth has never been a climber. It's not heights she's afraid of, but her own innate clumsiness. She doesn't mean to be clumsy, but she has little faith in her own athleticism. Her mind, her intellect, on the other hand, makes up for any physical deficiencies she imagines she may have. She reaches towards the second rock with her hands, while behind her, Harry is giving her quiet encouragement. "I'm in my late fifties, Ruth, and if I can climb these rocks, then so can you."

With those words, she turns around and glares at him. Then she decides to forget about Harry, and just climb. Once she decides that she wants to see what is the other side of the rocks, the decision is easy, so she climbs, stepping easily from one rock to the next, while Harry follows close behind.

"Oh, Harry," she says, once she reaches the top. She turns to speak to him, but he passes her, moving over the top of the rocks to a flat rock just on the other side.

"This is where I usually sit," he says, turning to offer Ruth his hand.

But she decides to perch on the rock immediately behind him, so that she can see over either of his shoulders. She can even touch him, should she want to.

Below them is is very small bay. The tide is on the way in, and the water gathers at each end of the bay, flowing towards the rock wall on the landward side. There, the confluence of the water from both sides of the bay surges and splashes against the rocks, sending water into the air. Over time, the tide had worn a ledge into the base of the naturally formed rock wall. Once the water flows into this ledge, the ledge appears to spit it out, upset by the sea's saltiness.

Ruth watches the water as it flows into the small bay, whirling around, and then splashing against the rock wall. The regular motion is hypnotic, like a visual heartbeat. "It's beautiful," she breathes, leaning forward so that Harry can hear her voice above the sighing of the water.

He nods, and then he leans back slightly so that his back rests against her knees. "I find that this is a good spot for when I need to think," he says, half turning his head towards her.

"What do you think about?" she asks, and she wonders would he mind if she placed her hand on his shoulder. She doesn't, but she'd like to.

"Everything. I wonder how I'll fill my days for the rest of my life. I wonder what my daughter will think of her father being sacked. And I think about us." Harry turns back to watching the ebb and flow of the sea.

" _Us_?"

Harry takes some time to answer her, and she knows he's weighing his words, deciding how to say what it is he wants to say. "When my sentence was ... announced, I sat there .. rather stunned, partly because I hadn't expected that. I'd expected a custodial sentence. Then ... what began to occupy my mind was that you'd want nothing more to do with me, so when I turned to see you sitting there, I ..." Harry still hasn't turned around, so Ruth places one hand on his shoulder, and very slowly, he lifts his hand to grasp her fingers. "Despite everything," he continues, "seeing you sitting there in such distress ... I knew all was not lost .. for us."

Ruth waits for a long moment, internally debating the wisdom of what she longs to do. Life is short. They have already been parted twice, and at this very moment, Harry could have been languishing in prison for a very long time, perhaps for the rest of his life. She leans forward, sliding both hands over his shoulders until they lightly rest on his chest. She slides one hand through the opening of his jacket, placing her palm flat, so that through his shirt she can feel his heartbeat, regular and strong and steady. Her face is so close to his head that she presses her lips against his hair. Then she moves her head so that her cheek rests against his cheek.

They sit like that for a long time. Harry lifts one of his hands to grasp her hand, running his thumb back and forth along her knuckles.

Feeling Harry attempting to turn in her arms, she loosens her grasp. She knows what he wants. His eyes meet hers, and for a long moment they watch one another. He doesn't speak, and she finds the intensity of his gaze confronting. His eyes are so close to hers, his mouth only inches from her own mouth. He reaches towards her so that his soft lips touch hers. It is not so much a kiss as a glance, a taste test. She'd like him to do that again, but he's already turned back to watching the sea surging and splashing, turning under itself, before flowing back out to sea.

"This bay is an anomaly, Ruth," he says. "It's like us. It shouldn't exist. It shouldn't even be possible, but here it is - something special, remarkable even, where you'd least expect to find it."

Ruth's arms grasp him closer, and she presses her lips against his neck, just below his ear. She is suddenly very glad that she'd accepted Harry's offer to spend this time with him away from London.

* * *

 _ **A/N : While Hastings and environs exists (almost) as I've described it, the small bay doesn't, although it would be nice if it did.**_


	5. Chapter 5

**~ True Confessions ~**

Ruth is in the kitchen preparing a late lunch of sandwiches, while Harry stands at the living room window, giving her a running commentary on the weather.

"The wind has increased, and I'm sure I can see raindrops. We made it back just in time," he calls to her.

They had sat on the rocks overlooking the miniature bay for a very long time. Ruth had kept her arms around him, and her face close to his cheek, while with one hand he'd caressed the fingers of the hand she'd not tucked inside his jacket. Neither had wanted to move from there, but then the wind had changed direction, becoming gusty and cold.

"I suppose we should head back," he'd said, in a tone which suggested he'd rather do anything but that.

Ruth had slowly and reluctantly released her hold on him, freeing them to carefully descend the rock face, before returning the way they'd come. This time Ruth had slipped her hand inside his, and he had grasped her much smaller hand in his large one. They'd walked hand in hand all the way back along the beach, and then when they'd reached the walking path, Ruth had slipped her hand through his arm, something she'd done before when he'd needed reassurance about some operational decision he'd made, and perhaps regretted.

While Harry is her rock, her tether, Ruth is becoming aware that she is his light, guiding him out of the dark, a darkness frequently of his own making. Harry needs to know that his life need not always be a struggle, and he is not necessarily always the one responsible when things turn out badly. He needs her to lift him out of his gloom, while she needs him to hold her steady when she falters. Together they support one another, providing the very thing the other needs. Together they stand strong, while apart they each flounder. He needs her as much as she needs him, and to deny them both the opportunity to be together is unthinkable.

* * *

After they've eaten they sit over cups of coffee, talking about the weather - now raining steadily - as well as their plans for the rest of the day. Ruth thinks they should take the opportunity of a day indoors to go to bed together, but she is not quite brave enough to speak the words aloud. Besides, she'd rather Harry be the one to come up with the idea.

They sit quietly, each gazing through the kitchen window at the rain.

"Another coffee, Ruth?" Harry asks, and she nods.

"There's something I feel I should explain to you," she says at last, her eyes on her mug of coffee, which she has just sugared and then stirred. She looks up to see a shadow of fear in Harry's eyes. She is sad that her previous fears, her hesitance has done that to him ... made him afraid. "It's about what I said to you after Ros's funeral, and after you ..."

"Suggested we get married," he says quietly, staring intently at his own coffee. "It's all right, Ruth. I think I understand."

"I'm sure you don't." Which is when Harry lifts his eyes to hers, and she sees the glimmer of hope in them. "When I said to you that we were fine as we were ... at work, I said it as a way to deflect your clear interest in me. We were close ... when we worked together, and I believed that was enough. I _wanted_ it to be enough. Our working relationship is more clearly defined than ... the other." Seeing Harry's brief nod, she barrels on. "I was wrong, Harry. At the risk of saying something stupid, something out of place ..."

"Say it, Ruth. _Please_." Harry's voice is husky, pleading. She daren't hurt him now. She's tired from hurting him, because what she now knows for sure is that whenever she hurts Harry, she also hurts herself.

"Were we to have that day all over again, I'd have a different answer for you."

"You'd marry me?"

"Maybe not immediately. I think we need to spend more time with just the two of us ..."

"Like this," he says, hopefully.

Ruth nods, offering him a brief smile, accompanied by equally brief eye contact. "The reason I said yes so readily when you rang me two days ago was because during your .. time of suspension I'd decided that, were you to be spared a custodial sentence, we need to approach one another differently."

They sit in silence for some time. Ruth is watching the surface of her coffee while waiting for Harry's answer, not knowing that he is watching her closely, hoping that when he at last speaks, he will not make a mess of it.

"So .." he begins carefully, "by `something different' you mean what exactly, Ruth?"

"I suppose I mean that we should spend as much time together as we can."

"Like we are now."

"Yes, and furthermore, should we find we ... get on as well in our personal lives as we have in our professional roles, then ..."

"We should ... what?"

"There are several options open to us, Harry, only one of which is marriage. As you may already have guessed, I'm not a fan of marriage. I've seen too many good marriages fail. It's a little too final for me, and too difficult and ultimately painful to get out of. Besides, you've been married .. and divorced, so you must know what I mean."

Harry nods. "So ... this week or so we spend together here is like a trial run."

Ruth smiles, relaxing. "Something like that, yes, and we also need to ..." She can't say it. She can't just come out and suggest they have sex. What would he think of her?

"Sleep together," he says quietly.

"And everything else that couples do in bed," she adds lamely, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

"You're suggesting we have sex ... this week?"

She'd been thinking more of that night ... or even that afternoon. After all, it's raining steadily, so what else are they to do to while away the afternoon?

Harry is watching her, while she is trying hard to avoid his eyes. She looks up to see him still watching her, his hands wrapped around his coffee mug, now almost empty. He breathes out heavily, something Ruth sees as a bad sign.

"As much as I am tempted by your close proximity, Ruth, and as much as I would dearly love to take you to my bed this afternoon, I believe that to be a very bad idea, and before you howl me down with reason, hear me out."

Now it is Ruth who is watching him with a hint of fear in her eyes. Is he about to confess to her that he is impotent, or that some time in the past few months he'd contracted a venereal disease? Neither option is desirable, so she waits until he is ready to tell her ... what it is he is about to tell her.

"Apart from with my ex-wife, all my previous relationships with women have begun in the bedroom, and it was sex, and sex alone which provided the glue which kept us together. In my marriage, we used sex to make up after an argument, and because the sex was good, we believed - falsely - that we'd successfully dealt with our differences. All we'd managed to do was bury them even deeper, so that one day all our many problems emerged and very nearly destroyed us." He watches her for a long moment. "What I'm trying to say, Ruth, is that I don't want that to happen to us. If we decide to try for a commitment together, I want it to be for life, and not just for the next month or two."

"I agree with that."

"Which part?"

"About needing any commitment we make to be ... hopefully for the rest of our lives." To Ruth's mind, `the rest of our lives' sounds like a very long time indeed.

Harry nods. "The only reason my former wife and I lasted as long as we did was because we were friends before we became lovers."

"And you had children together."

"There is that, yes."

"You and I are already friends, Harry, and we have been for years."

Harry pushes away his mug before resting his forearms on the table, and leaning towards her. "We have that advantage, yes. What I want us to discover before we rush to the bedroom, is whether we're compatible when living together, under the same roof." Ruth nods. She understands now. "I'm not rejecting you, Ruth. You can't know how much I want you. When I'm on my own, I think of little else."

Ruth finds herself smiling. She also spends much of her private time imagining what it would be like to make love to Harry. "What happens when I have to go back to work?" she asks.

"How long before you need to be back on the Grid?"

"Erin suggested I take two weeks, and I objected to that, more out of habit than anything else. My life for so long has been my work."

"I'd like to be part of you changing that, Ruth. There's more to life than working for a living."

"That's all very well for you to say," she objects. "You already have an income. I have to work."

Harry reaches across the table with one hand. When she doesn't respond, he reaches further to grasp her hand between his fingers. "We don't have to sort out all the details now," he says. "All I've been saying is that I'm tired of us dancing around one another, never saying what we mean, when we both know how much we love one another, and want to be together."

When he'd said the words, `we love one another', Ruth had sat up straight, her eyes wide, while her hand remains in Harry's grasp.

"We do, you know," he continues, "whether you're prepared to admit it or not." When Ruth's brow furrows in a frown, he explains himself. "What I'm saying is that we love one another. I love you, and I know that you love me, even if you won't admit it to me ... or even to yourself."

Ruth breaks eye contact before she nods. "I know I do," she murmurs, her voice barely audible.

They sit quietly, holding hands across the table, while their coffee gets cold. It is only when they hear a strange ringtone from the living room that they break contact, and turn towards the sound of the phone.

"That's my new phone," he says. "My personal phone. I wonder is it my daughter."

Ruth lifts her eyes to his and smiles. "There's only one way to find out."


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: M-ish content.**_

* * *

 **~ The Perfect Moment ~**

Ruth listens to the rumble of Harry's voice from the living room, unable to determine the identity of his caller. She just hopes it's not some journalist ... or the Home Secretary, or Erin, although why either of them would have reason to contact Harry she can't say.

She is sitting over a third mug of coffee, something she never does in her London life. She never has time. If she's at work, then there is work to do, and if she's at home, then there's still work to be done, even if it's cleaning, or the laundry, or the never-ending task of tidying her flat. Since Beth had gone, there is less tidying to be done, less dishes, but despite that, she still misses Beth's uncomplicated company ... the presence of a another person with whom she can share some of the details of her day. Ruth considers herself a loner, but she enjoys living with others, and she is enjoying living with Harry.

The conversation with Harry about where they go from here, and how, has disturbed her. While she knows that planning a future direction with him is a good thing, she is not used to planning her personal relationships. Her relationships with men have always just _happened_. Even when she'd lived in Polis with George, together they'd had no grand plan. When George had mentioned marriage, she'd said `maybe one day'. They'd even talked about it, as though it would happen for them one day, although she had never expected it to, or especially desired it. They'd shared a conversation about who they might invite to their wedding. It had been a warm Friday night, and they'd consumed several bottles of local wine, so for her, it had never been a discussion with serious intent. As much as she'd cared for George, even loved him in a way, she had known that marriage was not to be their destiny, not while Harry was still alive and living in London.

The one thing from their conversation which has disturbed her most has been his suggestion that their desires for one another not be indulged too soon. While she knows his reasons are valid, she is not used to the man being the one to be cautious about heading to the bedroom. Most men she has known have wanted to head there at speed. Perhaps, being fifty-seven, Harry is not as keen on sex as he once was, but that just doesn't make sense. She has seen the way he looks at her, his beautiful eyes hungry with want. Harry is as keen to be taking her to bed as she is to be accompanying him.

"That was a surprise." Harry has entered the kitchen silently, like the spy he's been for so long. "You'd never guess."

Ruth lifts her face to his, surprised to see his smile. "Tell me."

"That was Graham. My son. He rang to apologise ... to me, but mainly to you."

"To _me_?"

"To you, yes." Harry takes a seat at the kitchen table. "He'd thought about what he'd said to me, and his words to me were: `I'm sick of fighting with you, Dad. I know I'm partly responsible for the way things have been between us.'" Harry waits a moment, taking his eyes from hers.

"Harry?" When Harry again looks her way, she sees the emotion in his eyes, so she quickly gets to her feet, and walks around the table to sit beside him. She places her hand on his hand, which he turns so that he can grasp her fingers in his. "Tell me. What is it?"

So Harry tells her about his fraught relationship with his son, the small boy's need of him when he was at home so rarely, the adolescent's turning away from the man he claimed was `the problem', followed by almost a decade of drug and alcohol abuse. "For the last two to three years he's been clean, but angry. Mostly he's been angry with me, but he'd managed to keep his anger in check ... until yesterday."

"Perhaps the person he was really angry with was himself," Ruth says quietly, watching Harry's face as he tries hard to mask his emotions.

Harry nods. "I suspect so. I spent a few years in late adolescence blaming my father for everything, and then when my mother died, and he was so ... broken, I saw an entirely different side to him, but neither of us knew how to ..." Harry swallows, taking his eyes from Ruth. She knows he is regrouping, pulling himself together, regaining steel-like control over his emotions.

"You know better now," she says, and she leans against him, pressing her lips to his shoulder.

"I know. This time I'll not leave it to fate to sort it out."

They sit in silence, Harry gripping Ruth's hand, while she rests her cheek against his shoulder. Neither speak for a long time, and then Harry continues the story of his son's phone call.

"The defining factor in the end, Ruth, was you."

" _Me_?" She sits up straight, taking her cheek from his shoulder.

"Yes. Graham told me he'd spent much of this morning thinking about what kind of woman would have me handing over a dangerous weapon to an unstable man - which is how the papers described it - and he concluded that such a woman would have to be more than ..."

".. a casual shag," Ruth finishes for him.

Harry turns to her and nods. "It was something one of his mates at work said. The mate commented that the woman - meaning you - would have had to be something special for James Bond - the mate's name for the unnamed agent - to have risked everything for her."

Ruth experiences a moment of discomfort. She doesn't think she's special at all. She's just Ruth, a very ordinary women, doing a difficult job rather well, and who finds herself in love with a man whose job had taken so much from him, almost draining him of the ability to function normally. She is sitting up, watching him, her hand still in Harry's. "I'm not -"

"You are, Ruth. You're special to me. Even my son has worked that out."

Again, they sit quietly, neither knowing quite where they should go from there, until again, Harry is the one to break their silence.

"Graham's phone call has also had me rethinking something else," he says, turning towards Ruth, who has been focused on their hands. "I think that tonight ... after dinner ... we should climb the stairs together."

Ruth quickly lifts her head to determine whether he means what he has said. "You were so determined, Harry. What made you change your mind?"

He smiles into her eyes, something Ruth has noted he does so seldom to others, but often to her. "I just thought ... why wait for some perfect moment some time in our future? It's possible that we're here together now for a reason. Perhaps the perfect moment is now." He waits for a long time for her answer, and when she answers, he couldn't be more happy.

"Why wait until after dinner?" she says. "It's raining, and we're both at a loose end. Perhaps the perfect moment _is_ now"

* * *

They climb the stairs together, Harry leading the way, Ruth's fingers loosely grasped in his. Once at his bedroom door, they turn to one another, and without words, they come together in a kiss unlike any they'd previously shared. Ruth allows herself to get lost in the kiss, as he presses his body against hers, one hand in the middle of her back, while the other seeks the soft curve of her buttocks, gently grasping and loosening her flesh through her jeans. Ruth murmurs against his mouth, and Harry answers with a throaty growl, before slowly walking her to the bed, where they briefly pull apart to lie down side by side. Ruth manages a quick glance around the room. Unlike her own room, she sees nothing out of place. Perhaps Harry has packed all his clothes away, unlike Ruth, whose clothes are still in her case, which is open, and on the floor beside her bed, so that she can easily grab what she wants when she needs it.

Harry watches her as she takes in the room around her. She turns to him then, to see him gazing at her gently, lovingly. "We don't have to actually do anything, Ruth. Maybe it will be enough for us to lie in bed together."

Who is he kidding? What she reads in his eyes is hope, and what she has felt in his body as he'd pressed against her is lust and longing. "I think we both need more than just to lie together in bed," she whispers, since their faces are still close.

This time it is Ruth who initiates the kiss, winding her hands around his neck, and one leg around his calf. She grasps his hair between her fingers, massaging his scalp, drawing a moan from deep in his throat. As the kiss deepens, Ruth can't help pressing her hips against his, and she smiles against his lips as he presses back, both hands on her buttocks, his fingers massaging her flesh slowly and sensuously. Despite still being full clothed, Ruth's body responds quickly, a warm thrumming from between her legs sending a flushing up her body to her throat. She hums into his mouth. As he pulls out of the kiss, Ruth complains with a `don't, Harry'.

"I think we need to ... undress," he manages to say huskily, and so they do.

Together they sit on the end of the bed to more easily remove their own clothing, occasionally helping the other with a button or buckle which proves tempting, inviting. Ruth bats his fingers away, so that she can pull down the zipper in his trousers, before sliding them over his hips and to the floor, while Harry is busy with the clasp of her bra. "Stupid, impractical things," he complains, just before the last clasp slips from its eyelet, and he pushes the bra from her shoulders and to the floor, before brushing his fingertips across the full flesh of her breasts.

Once they are naked, they climb beneath the duvet, where they roll together, embracing one another eagerly. As his fingers feather down her neck to her breast, Ruth shivers, and while she gently caresses his lower abdomen from one side of his body to the other, she feels his body shuddering beneath her fingertips, drawing from him a heavy sigh, his mouth close to her ear. They have all afternoon, the rest of the day if need be, but they are both eager, and curious, and more importantly, they are ready.

Slowly and carefully he slides inside her, his eyes holding hers. She smiles back at him, and he relaxes, moving slowly at first, gaining confidence with her, this woman who had for so long turned away from him. This is their time, and their time alone. They are in bed together, and Harry is inside her, something she had come to believe would never happen, _could_ never happen. Above them, steady rain patters on the roof, but neither can hear it above the pounding of their heartbeats.

* * *

Afterwards they lie together, saying nothing. Neither knows quite what to say, worrying that words spoken unwisely, or in haste could destroy the moment. They both doze lightly, until a loud knocking on the back door draws them back.

" _Jesus_ ," Harry exclaims, having been woken by the sound.

"They'll go away," Ruth mumbles, her nose pressed against Harry's shoulder.

"Yoo-hoo! _Harry_!" A female voice calls from the other side of the back door.

"It's Marilyn, and she knows I'm home. My car's in the back yard." He is already out of bed, and pulling on his dressing gown while he pushes his feet into his slippers. Then he quickly leaves the room, while Ruth buries herself further beneath the duvet.

* * *

When Harry returns, Ruth feels him climb into bed beside her, finding her face so that he can kiss her, this time on her forehead. Reluctantly, grumpily, she lifts her head so that she can see him smiling down at her.

"You'd never guess," he says.

"She propositioned you, begging you to go next door and give her -"

"No, Ruth, she didn't. She doesn't fancy me. As you said, I think she feels sorry for me."

By this time, Harry has her attention, as she rests against her pillow, having pulled up the duvet to cover her breasts. Harry has to smile at her modesty, when less than a half hour earlier she'd been happy for him to gaze hungrily at her naked body.

"She has soup," he says, expecting her to understand the rest.

"She's invited us to _dinner_?"

"Thankfully, no."

"Her brother and sister-in-law have a ... place the other side of Hastings. It's a small farm where they hold camps for groups of school kids who need to see where food comes from, and they have an eatery."

"A restaurant?"

"Not exactly. Marilyn's sister-in-law makes meals using their produce, and they're open each day for lunch. Today she made pumpkin soup, and because it rained, not many people turned up, and she had enough left over to give some to Marilyn." Ruth frowns, while Harry smiles at her. "She considers it a favour for us to take it off her hands. That means we won't have to cook dinner."

Ruth feels her frown relaxing into a smile. Pumpkin soup for dinner, followed by spending the night in Harry's bed. What a way to end the perfect day?


	7. Chapter 7

**~ All Good Things ~**

Three days later, Ruth is woken by a sound which, while familiar to her, she can't quite place. She is in Harry's bed, and beside her he is beginning to stir. They have spent the past three days taking long walks along the beach, and while back in the beach house, they have spent their time between the kitchen and living room, with quite a lot of time being spent in the bedroom.

She knows that sound. It is her phone ringing from her bedroom next door. She considers leaving it to ring out, but when Harry grumbles, "answer the bloody thing, Ruth," from beside her, she climbs out of bed. Since the rainy day three days earlier, the weather has warmed considerably, so she walks naked from Harry's bed to her own bedroom, where there's a bed she'd only slept in for one night.

Her phone is where she'd left it, on the small table beside the bed. It is perched precariously on top of three books, and with each ring, it slowly slides towards the edge of the top book. She grabs it before it falls to the floor.

"Ruth," says a voice familiar to her. "I was just about to hang up. Firstly, I apologise for interrupting your leave."

 _I should bloody hope so_ , Ruth thinks. "Erin," she says aloud, attempting to mask her annoyance.

"I know I told you to take two weeks from work, and I hope that is still your plan." Erin doesn't wait for Ruth to answer, but quickly continues. "I have a proposition to put to you, and I am hoping you will give it consideration. Firstly, are you in touch with Harry?"

"Harry? Er .. yes. I have his number, and I have a fair idea where he is." No lies there, but she's not about to tell Erin he's in bed in the room next door, where she's only just left him. That information is definitely need to know only.

"First thing this morning I had a phone call from William Towers. I was still home having breakfast with my mother and my daughter when he rang. He has a proposition for you and Harry ... if you're interested. I thought if I fill you in, then you can be prepared for a meeting when you return to London."

Erin Watts is particularly skilled at security services double speak. What the woman had just said to her was, `I know that you and Harry are somewhere together, so I'm giving you the message, and could you please pass it on to Harry, perhaps over your bacon and eggs.'

"Go ahead, Erin," Ruth says, and she grabs a checked flannel shirt from the chair near her bed, and while still listening to Erin she skilfully slides her arms into it, while tucking her phone beneath her chin. Just over ten minutes later, Erin has said her piece.

"You'll share this idea with Harry?"

"Yes. I'll tell him. I can't predict how he might react, but I am quite interested."

 _Quite interested_? Ruth is more than quite interested. What the Home Secretary has suggested may be the answer she has been searching for, and although she can't speak for Harry, Ruth hopes he at least is prepared to consider the offer.

When Erin ends the call, Ruth looks up to see Harry, dressed in only his dressing gown - untied - leaning against the door frame. "What is it you have to tell me, Ruth?" he asks. "If they're after my expertise, I don't come cheaply."

* * *

"Bacon and eggs?" Harry asks her when she enters the kitchen, having thrown on some clothes. Harry is barefoot, still dressed in only a dressing gown, hopefully tied, or he could be pan-frying more than eggs and bacon.

"Love some. Two bacon and -"

"One egg, yes, I know, Ruth."

"I'll make coffee," she says absently ... and unnecessarily, since each morning they've been sharing the house, he has cooked their breakfast, while she makes their coffee. They have found a comfortable order of things, and so far, it works well.

Then there are their nights. Ruth has been surprised, not only by Harry's desire for her, but her own for him. Their encounters have been (surprisingly) frequent, passionate, and satisfying for them both. Perhaps marriage to Harry might not be such a bad idea after all, although the very idea of being tied legally to another human being still feels confining, as well as final. Perhaps she needs to discuss the idea further with Harry. Perhaps not. Perhaps all she needs is to allow herself time to get used to the idea. Perhaps contemplating a future without Harry might help her to fine tune her decision.

"Tuck in," Harry says, placing a plate of bacon and eggs in front of each of them.

They eat in silence, and it is only once Ruth has finished her food, and Harry is mopping up stray egg yolk with a half slice of bread that he looks up at her with both eyebrows lifted. "You have something to tell me," he states.

"We've both been offered jobs," Ruth says, once their plates are pushed aside.

"I don't especially want to work," Harry replies. "I'm enjoying this .. being with you, our days stretching ahead of us."

"I can't see either of us being happy with an endless number of unstructured days before us."

"I know you're right. So tell me what Erin has concocted in that orderly brain of hers."

"Erin described your role as being one of consultation. She suggested that your years of working in the intelligence service should not be thrown away, and I agree with her."

"They won't be," he says. "I intend spying on you at every opportunity."

Ruth shakes her head, trying and failing to hide her smile. "As Erin described it, we can work together in much the same way we always have."

Harry nods, but given he's chewing a mouthful of bacon, he says nothing. "I thought, given it's a nice day," he says at last, "we might try the lunch at Marilyn's brother's farm."

"Don't you want to discuss the work offer?"

"We can discuss it with Erin, Ruth ... once we return to London."

"You're assuming I'll be returning to London with you."

"It's either that or the train," he says quickly.

"Wouldn't it be safer all round were I to travel back to London alone? I don't mind the train, and I can head home, and you can drive to your house."

Harry watches her for a very long moment. "Whatever you wish, Ruth."

"It's just that Erin has pencilled in an appointment with us both late on Wednesday afternoon ... next week."

Harry places his knife and fork on his plate, and stares across the table at her. "That's only six days away. That gives us only five full days left here ... alone."

"I had worked that out."

"Then we should make the most of it," he says firmly.

"I thought we already were."

Harry smiles, nodding slowly. "Shall we take a walk before lunch?"

Ruth nods. She'd quite like to stretch out on the sofa with a book, but walking with Harry it is.

* * *

Marilyn's brother's small and tidy rural holding rests in a valley a little over ten kilometres inland from Hastings. By the time they are parked in the empty field behind the farm buildings, Harry is complaining of being hungry. "I hope they're serving steaks," he says, as they trudge along a track towards the building where it is apparent lunch is being served.

"I can't see any cows," Ruth says, gazing around them.

"I can hear chickens," he says, "and I'm sure I can smell cows."

The day is warm and sunny, and lunch is being prepared and served in what appears to be a newly built wooden structure, with large windows overlooking a wide terrace. They enter through a back door to see a room full of tables, half of which are occupied, with a serving counter to one side. On one end of the counter is a blackboard, with the day's offerings written boldly in yellow chalk. They stand close together while they peruse the menu - three mains and two desserts.

"No alcohol, and no steaks," Harry whispers hoarsely, his mouth close to Ruth's ear.

"But there's vegetable soup, and a vegetarian quiche with salad, and lamb cutlets with home grown vegetables," she says, turning towards him.

"Everything on the menu is grown on this farm," they hear a cheery voice from the other side of the counter, "other than the flour for the base of the quiche, and the bread rolls. The flour is organic, and there is a gluten-free option. I'm Megan," the young woman continues, "and this property is run by my parents, and all the food is cooked by my mother, Angela."

Ruth smiles at Megan, but she can feel the tension in Harry's body. Knowing he'd hoped for something hearty and filling, she turns towards him to draw his gaze to her. "I suggest we each have the vegetable soup, accompanied by bread rolls," she says quietly, "and if you're still hungry after that, you can have rhubard and apricot pie and cream for sweets, or even a second helping of soup."

"The bowls of soup are rather large," says Megan. The farmer's daughter seems to have super hearing. "And the person who needs seconds after finishing a bowl has not yet been born."

"Funny, isn't she?" Harry whispers, his words for Ruth only. He then steps towards the counter to order for them both.

Megan points out that there is a spare table for two on the terrace, and that if they like, they can sit out there. Ruth watches as Harry pays for their food, and then offers Megan his most dazzling smile, along with protracted and direct eye contact. When the twenty-something Megan drops her eyes and blushes, Ruth has to turn away for fear she'll begin giggling. How like Harry to be on his very best behaviour when dealing with the younger woman.

"You've clearly still got it," she says, once they are seated on the terrace.

"Got what?"

"As if you didn't know. You know very well you had Megan eating out of your hand."

Ruth waits while Harry unfolds his paper napkin, before folding it again. Then he lifts his gaze to her. "You're the only woman I want eating out of my hand, Ruth. Sometimes, the ... direct personal treatment works best."

At that moment, Megan enters Ruth's peripheral vision to place a basket of bread rolls between them. Ruth lifts her eyebrows to Harry, who this time is smiling just for her. Only minutes later a tall young man, who closely resembles Megan in colouring and facial features, looms into view carrying a tray, on which are two large bowls of vegetable soup.

"I'm Harry," says the young man, "and so if you need anything, just call me over."

"That's a good name you have there," says the older Harry.

"Thanks," says Harry, smiling at Ruth, and then at Harry. "My parents thought so."

"Mine, too," says Ruth's Harry, who smiles up at his younger namesake.

Young Harry nods knowingly, grins, and then leaves them to eat their lunch in peace.

"We've only been here fifteen minutes," Ruth says, "and already you've made two friends-for-life."

Harry is dipping his spoon into his soup, and just before he tastes it, he lifts his eyes to Ruth. "Admit it, Ruth. You find me adorable."

Ruth drops her eyes and smiles to herself. Harry is showing off, just for her. She has to admit that she quite likes it.

As she'd expected, the soup is hearty and delicious, and Ruth struggles to get through hers, giving up around two-thirds the way through. "I can't possibly eat any more," she says, leaning back in her chair to give her digestive system room to do its thing.

"I'm also struggling," Harry replies, "but I'm not prepared to let a bowl of vegetable soup beat me."

Harry eats all but two spoonfuls of his soup, so that when young Harry returns to remove their bowls, the younger man's enquiry about sweets is met with an apology from Harry, and a small shake of Ruth's head.

"Our compliments to your mother," Ruth says, smiling. "The soup was delicious."

Young Harry smiles and nods. "Thank you. I'll pass that on to her."

They sit quietly for a while, allowing their food to settle, and just as Ruth is about to suggest that Harry order coffee, he stands. "Coffee, Ruth?" he asks, and she smiles and nods, watching Harry as he crosses the terrace to the door.

Ruth allows her body to relax. She realises that for the first time since before she'd returned to London from Cyprus, she feels completely happy and content.


	8. Chapter 8

**~ The Offer ~**

6 days later - late afternoon:

"Are you ready?" he says, leaning towards her. Ruth notices his eyes are not on her, but he is gazing past her to the house at the address Erin had messaged her. Harry has parked his car in front of the single-fronted, two-storeyed Georgian house, which Ruth is having difficulty believing is a safe house.

"It's far too smart for a safe house," she says, ignoring his question. She's not ready to meet Erin, but then, she never has been. Erin is everything she is not, and for the most part would never wish to be.

"I suspect it's no longer a safe house," Harry says quietly, his face close to hers.

"Meaning?"

"I suspect this is to be your place of work, Ruth. I imagine Erin already has it set up with security, and electronic everything-you-need."

"That would be nice, but I'd much prefer to work from home."

Erin appears unsurprised that Ruth and Harry have arrived together, but Ruth has rarely seen Erin fazed. The woman is made from marble, directly hewn from the source.

"I hope you like this house," Erin says, as she shows them through the ground floor - from the entry hall, to the living room, and then to a large eat-in kitchen. It is then that Erin turns to Ruth. "I thought it might be more convenient for you, Ruth, were you to move into this house."

"Move in? I'm not sure I can afford this address."

"Take a seat. I've already made a pot of coffee," and Erin turns to the kitchen counter to pour coffee into three mugs, while Harry pulls out a chair for Ruth before sitting beside her. Having first carefully placed their mugs on the table, Erin lifts a hand to flick her hair over one shoulder, before sitting in a chair across the table from them.

"This house once belonged to Six. It was run down, and needed some TLC, so once the refurbishment was completed, it was transferred to Five. It's fully furnished and appointed, so all you'll have to bring is your personal things."

"And what about my flat?" Ruth asks, not especially worried about the flat she's lived in since returning to London two years earlier.

"We can use your flat as a safe house - a place for agents in the field to either lie low, or recover after a difficult operation. You'll be paying the same rent. Everything you need for this job is already here. There's a fully appointed office upstairs, which I'll show you after we've discussed the job."

Ruth can't believe what she's being offered. This flat is more of a townhouse. It is newly painted, the rooms are generously proportioned, and through the glass doors to the narrow back garden, sunlight beams, providing light to the whole downstairs. She turns towards Harry to see him watching her.

"This house makes your flat look like a cell in the gulag, Ruth," he says.

"It's not quite that bad, but ... this is so much better."

"You'd be doing the service a favour," Erin says quietly. "Keep in mind that this house goes with the job you're being offered. It will not be available to you were you to pass on the job."

"But you're confident I'll accept," Ruth says.

"I am. Had I your skills, I'd accept it in a heartbeat."

Erin then outlines Ruth's duties. "You'll still be working for the Section, but you will be based here. Your contact at Section D has the code name, Orlando. Orlando is Calum, but it's best no-one other than him and the three of us know his identity. Orlando will pass on to you all the most difficult jobs. Since such jobs are thankfully not always available, you will still be expected to do the bulk of the translating which is already part of your current job description."

"By `difficult jobs', you mean jobs requiring more delicacy than usual," Ruth says.

"As you know, the more difficult jobs are those involving the CIA, all countries in the Middle East, plus Russia and China ... _especially_ Russia and China. Mostly this part of the job will involve investigation into why certain foreign agents have decided to visit London - the underlying reasons, rather than the set script - and who they are planning to contact, and why. You will be required to do thorough background searches on all relevant agents. As you may have already guessed, there is already a job pending your attention, and as soon as you move in, I will expect you to begin investigating a .. certain group of delegates from Russia. We cannot meet with these people until we know the real reason they are here."

"And what happens to these specialised tasks were I to return to my normal job at Section D, or were I to resign?"

To her credit, Erin successfully hides any surprise she may feel at Ruth's question. Erin is the consummate spy - a woman who exists behind a mask of professional coolness and calm. "I don't expect either of those outcomes, Ruth. As I have observed you during the six weeks we worked together, this is the perfect job for you."

Ruth nods, knowing Erin is right. "And Harry? Where does he fit in?"

"I expect you to work together closely, as I know you are used to doing. Your role, Harry, as well as discussing individual cases with her, will be to be Ruth's arm on the ground. If someone needs to be met or informed, then you will be the informer, either face to face, or by whatever method you see fit. You will both be working independently of Section D, but I will need a written recommendation for each case .. or set of changing circumstances. Between the two of you, I see you managing your workload with ease. And lastly, there's the money."

Ruth is pleased to learn that she is receiving an increase in pay, and that Harry will be given a stipend, to supplement his pension. "I expect your role to be part-time, Harry," Erin explains, "but should your hours increase significantly, then your pay can be negotiated."

"I have just one question," Harry says, leaning forward. "Does anyone outside the three of us, Calum Reid, and the Home Secretary know about this?"

"No. It's important your roles remain secret. If you're worried about members of the Joint Intelligence Committee, they will be kept in the dark. There will be no personal glory to be gained from your efforts. Any outcomes which affect the actions of Section D will be absorbed by the section. You do the work, while we take the glory."

Harry nods. Nothing new there, then.

* * *

Ruth and Harry stand together in the small entrance hall, both staring at the door through which Erin Watts has just left, claiming she has `a stack of things still to do' back at Thames House. Erin had suggested they take a bit longer to wander through the house, without her hovering.

"That was ..." Harry begins, turning to look at his companion.

".. a surprise," Ruth finishes for him.

"I'm stunned into silence," Harry adds.

"Almost." Ruth also turns, looking up into Harry's eyes. He is not an especially tall man, but as he's standing beside her, his presence is imposing. Ruth much prefers him when he's lying in bed beside her. Then, he is a bulky man, but their height difference is not so starkly drawn.

"What are your thoughts?" he asks, still watching her closely, but leading her back to the kitchen, where the afternoon sun glares through the glass doors. "We should polish off this coffee," Harry adds, turning off the burner beneath the coffee pot, and pouring them each a fresh cup.

This time they sit close to one another, Harry at the end of the table, the sun behind his back, and Ruth to his left, his bulk leaving her sitting within his shadow. "About what exactly?" she asks, having tried her coffee, and finding it too hot.

"Everything. The job. This house. Our working together."

"We-ell," Ruth begins, sitting back in her chair, closely watching his face. "In order of your mentioning them ... the job sounds like an ideal solution -"

"To what?"

"To having to return to Thames House and work with Erin, who is a closed book, unlike you .." When Harry lifts his eyebrows in an unspoken question, she decides to clarify. "As far as work goes, I usually know where I stand with you." He nods, but chooses to let her continue. "The house is lovely, but far too big for one person, so ... I thought ... that one day, maybe you might like to ..."

"I'd thought the same thing," he says quickly, aiming to put Ruth out of her clear discomfort at being the one to mention them living together.

"You _had_?"

"As, I suspect, had Erin. Despite appearances to the contrary, she has eyes, and nor is she without a beating heart. Besides, she has a child, and it usually takes a little romance to make one of those."

Ruth finds she is smiling, so she turns her gaze to her coffee. "As far as us working together, I can't wait. I've missed you, but ..."

 _There's always a bloody but_ , he thinks, waiting for her statement on them working side by side, something he'd miss were she to return to working at Thames House.

"You'll no longer be my boss, Harry. You will have to listen to me, and respect my point of view."

"I thought I already did. I've always let you get away with the kinds of questioning I'd never have tolerated from the others."

"That's because you know that when I push a point, it's usually because I'm right." Harry sits back in his chair, but she will not be deterred. "On this job we are equals. I will respect what you have to say, and this must work both ways."

Harry nods. He knows that working independently with Ruth will present a challenge for them both, as well as their growing personal relationship. "There's some nice kit in the office upstairs," he muses.

Ruth recognises his comment about the fully equipped office upstairs to be a full stop to their discussion about the job. They have already decided they'd like to try to make the job work, and that is all there is to say on the matter. She will let Erin know they will be ready to begin work on Monday, and that some time before Monday, with Harry's help, she will move her personal things - clothes, books, the contents of her food cupboards - into the house.

"I have to tell you this, Ruth, because I believe you have a need to know ..." Harry's voice is quiet, his gaze avoiding her, "in a way, as ideal as this job sounds, for us both, I suspect that Erin has been advised to get rid of you, and rather than lose your expertise and mine, she and the HS have concocted this little plan where we still serve the section, but as contractors. It's all being done in secret, while being perfectly legal."

"Get _rid_ of me?" Ruth has latched on to the very words which Harry had spoken quite quickly, hoping she'd miss them. "Why would she want to get rid of me?"

He sighs heavily, at last lifting his eyes to hers. "Your association with me taints your own previously pristine reputation. Erin knows we are together. It's likely she knows you spent the last ten or so days with me. Regardless of how well you do your job, your ... being with me represents a black mark against your name."

"Then I'm glad ... relieved .. that this job has been offered to us. That way we can spend not only our nights, but our days together, doing what we do best."

Harry's smile relaxes his features, and he reaches out to grasp her hand, squeezing her fingers between his. "Will you come home with me tonight?" he asks quietly. "I'd like you to spend the night. We were apart last night, and I didn't sleep well, so ..."

"You need me with you so you can get a good night's sleep?"

"You know what I mean." She does. They have already established a pattern of spending their nights together. "There's a lot to do before Monday. We have to move you into this house, and I'd like to see my son and talk to him ... before we begin work."

Ruth is distracted by Harry's free hand. It rests on the table top, his fingers drumming a regular rhythm - irritating, while at the same time comforting. Harry is watching her, and she reads fear in his eyes. He is waiting for her answer. He must know by now that only one answer is possible.

'Then let's go," she says, and as she stands, she squeezes his hand, "to your house."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N : M-ish warning.**

* * *

 **~ The Task ~**

The following Monday - mid morning:

"Say those words again," Ruth says, focusing her eyes on his left shoulder.

"Elena Gavrik and I were lovers, Ruth."

Her eyes briefly flick to his, and then back to his shoulder. "The other bit."

"The bit about her trying to convince me her son was mine?" Ruth nods. "I'm almost certain she lied about that."

"But you don't know for sure."

"Not entirely, no, but I always used protection, so I'm sure the urban myth about sabotaging condoms by stabbing them with pins is just that." He watches her as she absorbs the information. It is only when a slight smile turns her lips that he knows they have successfully navigated the moment. "It was the Cold War. That's how intelligence was gathered back then."

"And you were married."

Harry nods. "As was she."

"Did her husband know?"

"I doubt it. She was a better spy than to be that careless. He would have killed her with his bare hands had he known."

"Do you intend meeting her?"

"Here? In London?" Ruth nods. "Of course not. This job is secret, and I don't want to risk it by meeting a woman whose loyalties are at best dubious." He hesitates, wondering are his next words necessary. In the moment, he decides they are. "I also don't wish to damage or threaten ... what we have."

Ruth lifts her eyes to hold his. Harry recognises her challenging stare. He needs to be totally honest with her. "I would have hoped we are strong enough to be able to successfully navigate something like this," she says quietly, almost inaudibly.

"It's just history, Ruth. History can't hurt us unless we allow it to."

"I know. Even if she attempts to contact you, she can't possibly know where you are."

Harry lets out the breath he'd been holding. "It wouldn't take much for her to discover where I live." Ruth nods, still holding his gaze. "Besides, if anyone is to meet her, it must be an experienced field agent, and I am no longer in the field."

"Not officially."

Harry holds her eyes for a just a moment longer than necessary, before quickly getting to his feet. "I'll make us coffee," he says, before leaving the upstairs office.

Ruth sits back in her chair and sighs. The news about Harry's affair with Elena Gavrik had come as a shock, although she can't determine why. She had heard about Harry's previous reputation with women. She is not worried about him picking up with the woman, or any woman. Ruth is sure of Harry's love for her. His persistence with her and loyalty to her are testament enough. She knows he will not stray, not now. Orlando - or Calum, as she still thinks of him - had sent through a long dossier on the Russian delegation which had already arrived in London. Central to this delegation is the Gavrik family. She had been confronted by the cold beauty of Elena Gavrik, just as she had felt chilled by the cold eyes and thin lips of her husband. The son, Sasha, is FSB, and he could be his father's son, but he could just as easily be the son of Colonel Igor Zhukov, who appears the be Ilya Gavrik's aide-de-camp, and rarely leaves the man's side.

Ruth stares at her monitor where the faces of the three members of the Gavrik family stare back at her. Something about their emotionless expressions sets off warning bells, leaving a heavy feeling in her gut. She senses they are trouble, and she hopes Harry means it when he says he has no intention of meeting them face to face. She spends long minutes examining the face of Elena Gavrik, imagining her as a much younger woman, seducing the much younger Harry - or he her, since she has no idea who it was took the first steps towards the other, and she daren't ask Harry. She tries to imagine Harry and Elena in bed together, but can't. All she sees is Harry's face close to her own as he leans in to kiss her, one bare shoulder above the duvet as he reaches across to caress the skin of her throat.

"Take some time out, Ruth," the man in question says, delivering their coffees to the small round wooden table in the middle of the room. Called the `time-out table', Harry had rescued it, along with two chairs, from his own house, declaring it was taking up precious space in his home office. Ruth smiles up at him, and joins him at the table, sitting carefully so as to not spill their coffee. "I think we need biscuits," Harry adds, and he again leaves the office before Ruth has a chance to tell him that neither of them really needs biscuits.

In only minutes, Harry returns with a plate of assorted biscuits. Predictably, the first biscuit he chooses is chocolate coated. Ruth stares at him, but he deliberately avoids eye contact. "You need to stop thinking about Elena," Harry says, once he has demolished the biscuit, and sipped his coffee.

"I wasn't -"

"Liar," he says quietly, watching her across the table. "It was thirty years ago, Ruth. What were you doing thirty years ago?"

"Trying - and failing - to gain the attention of Scott Crosby. We were ten, and he sat across the aisle from me in Music class, but he liked Donna Moss, and barely noticed I was alive."

"There you go, then. And I refuse to be jealous of the misguided and clearly blind Scott."

"I didn't have sex with Scott."

"I should think not. You were only ten."

Ruth drops her eyes, smiling to herself as she sips her coffee. They will be fine, so long as she manages to rein in her wild imagination. "I've decided to not get upset about something you did when I was still in primary school."

"Quite right," Harry says, carefully placing his coffee mug on the coaster. He sits up and watches Ruth closely. "I need you to look at all the contacts the three members of the Gavrik family make. Has .. your contact sent you anything like that?"

"Orlando sent those files through twenty minutes ago, but I've not yet had time to look at them. Are you looking for anything in particular?"

Harry sighs heavily, his eyes still focused on her face. Ruth is sure she reads longing in them, but that may also be her imagination at work. She does a quick mental calculation. It is three days since she and Harry had last slept together, and four days since they'd made love. She has been busy organising her new house, while Harry had spent Saturday afternoon and evening with his son, helping Graham move into a new flat. The night before - Sunday - they'd both claimed tiredness, so again they'd spent the night apart.

"Anything which appears out of place. I take it you've been given the names, phone numbers, and electronic addresses of all their London contacts."

"I have."

"Then you have what you need. Anything unnusual ... any unnecessarily long phone calls, or repeated contacts should be examined more closely."

Ruth nods. There is much to do. "Can I give you that task, Harry?"

"Checking the frequency and duration of contacts?" Ruth nods. "I thought you'd never ask. I hate being at a loose end while you're busy."

* * *

Late that evening:

"Ruth ... Ruth, please come back to bed."

Harry, wearing nothing but a pair of grey track pants, stands just inside the doorway to the living room - now Ruth's living room, or the living room in Ruth's new house. He watches Ruth sitting on the vast sofa, a small figure, tightly wound, her hands grasped tightly in her lap, while staring at the wall opposite.

"Darling, what's wrong?"

His use of the endearment, the first time either one of them has used such words when addressing the other, has her turning towards him, surprise clear in her expression. "I can't stop thinking," she says, rather lamely to her own ears. This is the first night Harry has spent with her in her new home, and she can't switch off her mind. "I have no idea what those Russians are up to."

Harry quickly and quietly crosses the polished wood floor to join her on the sofa. The curtains are partially open, allowing the moon's light into the room, just light enough for them to see one another. Harry slides closer to her, placing his hand on her thigh, over the long t shirt belonging to him, which she has decided to keep as her night shirt. "Come back to bed," he says gently. "I waited and waited, but you didn't return."

She turns towards him then. "I thought you were asleep."

"I wasn't, Ruth." He reaches further with his hand, grasping one of her hands in his. "I suppose ... I was waiting for you to tell me what was on your mind. I could almost hear your mind ticking over."

Ruth sighs, her eyes focused upon their hands. "As much as I'm ... enjoying working with you ... I'm scared that our work will once again take over, and that we ... _us_ ... will disappear beneath a pile of tasks to be done. Today's task is already occupying my mind far more than I'd like."

They could talk until dawn, and never reach a place of peace and calm. Harry wants her ... badly. Watching her gazing at their clasped hands, he feels his body reacting, so he turns towards her, releasing her hand so that he can wrap his arms around her. Then he half stands, leaning over her, so that her only option is to lean back against the cushions at one end of the sofa. Harry smiles into her eyes, and seeing softness there - along with an invitation - he lies beside her on the sofa.

Ruth makes the first move, reaching across to place a soft kiss on his lips. He returns the kiss with a careful touch of his lips on hers, and when he feels her hands slide around his waist, her fingertips pressing into the muscles of his back, pulling him closer, he lets go of his reserve. Again and again he kisses her, short, deep, desperate kisses, which have Ruth rubbing one hand up and down his back, from his shoulder blade to the top of his track pants. In one quick move, her fingers slide beneath the waist band, feathering across his buttocks. It is when her fingers reach the front of his body to where he is hard and hot, and eager for her that he opens his eyes to see she is smiling.

"God, I've missed you," he says, barely managing to put the words together in meaningful order. He is lying on the sofa beside her, a little distance between them, his own fingers running up and down the back of her thigh, until he slides a finger beneath the elastic of her knickers, seeking her heat, sliding back and forth across her folds, until she closes her eyes, and her breathing deepens. His last conscious thought is that he must be inside her, and soon.

Afterwards, he has no memory of how they'd managed to remove their clothing - his track bottoms, and her knickers and t shirt - but somehow their clothing ends up on the floor beside the sofa, while he slides inside her, grateful that her need of him matches his own of her. He manages to hold off his climax until she comes, and then he allows himself to let go of his steely self control, groaning loudly as he too climaxes, before flopping on the sofa beside her, exhausted and spent.

When next he opens his eyes, Harry notices two things. One is that he is lying on the sofa alone, covered by a light blanket, and the other is that the light of morning streams through the living room window. Very slowly he rolls over, peering towards the kitchen, where Ruth sits at the table, dressed for the day, a mug of coffee on the table in front of her.

"What time is it?" he asks sleepily, slowly smiling as she turns towards him.

"It's daytime," she says, "and just fifteen minutes ago, I might have made a breakthrough."

He sits up, throwing back the blanket before swinging his legs over the side of the sofa, grabbing his track bottoms and pulling them on. By the time he reaches the kitchen, he is fully awake. When he reaches Ruth, he places one hand on her shoulder before leaning down to kiss her on the mouth. "Good morning to you, too," he growls, before kissing her again, enjoying the touch of her palm on his bare chest. "I probably should shower and get dressed."

Ruth appears to ignore him. "You know how you spent all yesterday afternoon checking the contacts of the three members of the Gavrik family ..." Harry nods. He'd found nothing at all which should not have been there. Most of their electronic contact had been with each other.

"Had you checked the aide-de-camp?"

"The Colonel?"

Ruth nods. "Igor Zhukov has been Ilya Gavrik's right-hand man for over a two decades, and if anyone in that gathering is a loose thread, then it's him."

"You know that for sure, Ruth? It's just that I really need to visit the loo and have a shower." Harry is standing close to Ruth, and for a second or two, he considers coaxing her upstairs for a further session of lovemaking, this time in their bed. What is he thinking? He needs a piss, a shower, a shave, and clean clothes, and in that order. "Can it wait?" he asks.

"Go," she says. "Igor Zhukov will still be here, waiting for me to uncover his little game." She reaches up for another kiss, and he willingly complies.

"My clever Ruth," he says to himself as he quickly leaves the room.


	10. Chapter 10

**~ Progress ~**

Tuesday morning:

Ruth watches the face of the man she has loved for more years than she can remember, as he appears to struggle to understand what she has just told him. They are sitting at the kitchen table, eating their breakfast of boiled eggs, toast and coffee.

"So, you're saying," he says at last, "that we should ignore the members of the Gavrik family, and focus entirely on Igor Zhukov."

"Not exactly." Ruth waits while Harry frowns at her across the table. "But Zhukov is the key. His regular contact in London, the number he has rung over seventy times during the last three months, belongs to Gideon Forster."

"Gideon Forster is a Conservative MP, and while he's married, it's no secret he prefers sleeping with men. So, what you're saying is that this Zhukov fellow is gay."

"That's only half the story." Ruth opens the folder she'd brought to the breakfast table. From inside it she takes out two A4 sized photographs, then turns them towards Harry, laying them on the table side by side. "Look at these two men. What do you notice about them?"

"One is Sasha Gavrik, and the other is the Colonel," he says, failing to see what Ruth is getting at.

"Look at their noses, their cheek bones, their jaws, and then their eyes," Ruth says, and then sits back and waits for him to see what for her is plain to see.

It takes less than five seconds. " _Jesus_ ," he exclaims at last. "Zhukov is Sasha Gavrik's father."

"Either that, or the resemblance is accidental. but I doubt it. There's more," Ruth says, dropping her voice, as if others might be listening. Harry nods, so she continues. "At this stage, this is just a hunch, and to prove it may be difficult, perhaps dangerous. It's likely that the basis of this is sexual, but we both know how fundamentally sex goes hand-in-glove with politics .. _and_ with corruption." Ruth waits while Harry gathers their plates, and piles them on to the sink, before making them a pot of tea. As he waits for the kettle to boil, he turns to face her, letting her know he is listening once more. "To summarise, it's possible Ilya is either gay, or impotent, and the Colonel isn't especially fussy who he sleeps with. He may have slept with Elena for the express purpose of impregnating her, and with Ilya's blessing."

Again Ruth waits while Harry brings the teapot and cups to the table, before pouring a cup for each of them. His mind is in turmoil. How is it he'd not known this?

"Which brings us to Gideon Forster. It's possible Igor Zhukov and Gideon Forster MP have a loving relationship, but I doubt it. I suspect that Zhukov is - or has been for some time - grooming Forster for some event, or events further down the line. It's even possible he is setting up Forster with a view to blackmailing him. Perhaps this treaty, or agreement which is to be signed somehow forms part of the end game."

Harry sits back and watches Ruth, and she reads clear admiration in his eyes. "Have I ever told you how amazing you are?" he says, his eyes glowing. Ruth can't help the blush which rises from her throat to her cheeks, and she drops her eyes, a little embarrassed. "But despite those connections you have made, Ruth - and I have little doubt the story you have created has some truth to it, but even if every connection you have made is true, it may still add up to not very much at all. It's quite likely Zhukov _is_ Sasha's real father, and if he is, then it's also likely that Ilya knows. It's also possible that Zhukov and Gideon Forster have been lovers for some time, perhaps decades, but that also may mean nothing beyond that fact."

"We need to know more," Ruth says, knowing Harry is right, but annoyed with him for being so pragmatic, even dismissive. In the hour or so before he'd woken, Ruth had become quite attached to her theory - as loose as it is - of sexual shenanigans in high places.

"We need someone on the ground who can get close to Forster."

"Why not have someone approach Zhukov?" Ruth asks, already knowing the answer.

"Zhukov is a big man, a military man. He may be pushing sixty, but he looks fit. Besides, Forster is probably an easier target. I've heard he loves to talk about himself. And he likes boats."

"Then Section D has the perfect agent to get close to him, to form a -"

"Bloody hell, Ruth. You're not thinking of Dimitri, surely."

Ruth smiles across the table into her lover's eyes. "Not Dimitri, no. I'm not sure he could successfully pose as a love interest for Gideon Forster. Dimitri would be petrified the man would take a shine to him."

"Who, then?"

"Erin brought him with her when she joined Section D. Along with Calum Reid, she also brought Eden Hutton."

Harry frowns. "How is it I've never heard of this ... Eden Hutton?"

"He's almost always in the field. He's twenty-eight, slim, dark-haired, and he's bisexual, with a preference for male partners, and he's a _very_ good field agent." Ruth drops her eyes, perhaps in embarrassment. "I only met him once or twice. He's quite the charmer ... and most of the women on the Grid are just a little bit in love with him."

"Most? I am assuming you are not among this group of women who are so easily swayed by a charming and good-looking young man."

"Not me, no. I prefer my men to be a little more ... mature."

Harry is relieved that she had not used the word, `old'; he also wonders why is no-one had thought to mention this new agent. "So ... you'll recommend Eden Whatsisname meet Forster, get close to him, and hopefully bring about a show-down between Forster and the Russian?"

"I'll send my findings to Orlando after breakfast, and I'll leave it to Erin and her field agent to work out how to use that information."

Harry nods slowly. Ruth has changed gear much easier than he has. He still believes it's his job to plan the operation so that the desired outcome is assured. He sits back in his chair, emitting a long sigh. Investigate; collate information; discuss their findings; make a recommendation; send their recommendations through to Orlando. Done and dusted. The rest is the responsibility of Erin and her team. As much as he misses the excitement of the setup and the chase, Harry is not about to miss the accompanying stress.

* * *

The Grid - Wednesday morning:

"What do you think?" Erin asks, moving her pen from one hand to the other in a way which Calum finds distracting.

"You're asking _me_?" Calum is not used to Erin seeking his opinion.

"You've worked with Eden -"

"Only the once. The lad left me for dead."

"Not literally, Calum."

"No. What I meant was he has no fear."

"It's just that the talks with the Russians are due to begin next week, and our contract team -"

"Harry and Ruth?"

"Yes. They have found that Forster visits the Apollo Room each Friday night, from around eleven. That only gives Eden two days to prepare."

"I've watched him working, Erin. He only needs two minutes to prepare. He's a machine. Do you expect him to have to ... you know?"

"Have sex with Forster?" Calum nods. "That's down to Eden. As you say, his instincts are excellent, and he's prepared to do whatever it takes. All we need is some idea of what the Russians are really up to, and if he has to have sex with the man to find out, then he'll be expected to follow through."

Calum sighs heavily. If only there were a thirty-something Russian woman with information to share. He'd not hesitate to go the whole hog. What could he possibly lose?

* * *

The Apollo Room - Friday evening:

Eden Hutton has arrived at the venue with his flatmate, James. They stand at the bar together, each scanning the room. They have already formulated a plan, so all they have to do now is keep their eyes peeled for Gideon Forster. James knows Eden works in intelligence, and so he is willing to help out occasionally, when the situation calls for a brief distraction. It will be James' job to pretend to be a little the worse for drink, and to approach Forster, so that Eden will be the one to rescue the older man from the scruffy blond man.

Eden's own research has told him that Gideon Forster prefers his men young, and smartly dressed, with no tattoos, and preferably short hair. Eden is medium height, slim, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and thin black tie, his dark hair cut close to his scalp. Tonight he carries ID declaring him to be Tom Cotton.

Eden sips his drink slowly, while James is pouring his down his throat, one after the other. James is drinking bitters and tonic, so he'll act inebriated, while being completely sober. While on an operation they never take such risks. Eden watches James, hoping he'll quickly recognise Forster the minute he arrives. He's banking on Forster being alone, but if the MP arrives with company, he may have to move to Plan B, which he'll quickly formulate on the fly. Eden is the first to admit that he works best when under pressure.

James quickly grabs his fresh drink from the bar, elbowing his way through the crowd. "Sorry. Shit, mate, so sorry. Thought you were someone else," Eden hears him saying, his words slurred. He looks up to see Gideon Forster, a look of horror on his face, stepping away from James, who is trying to wipe his spilled drink from the older man's jacket.

Eden stands straight, and turns towards his friend. "Game on," he says aloud, knowing his words will be picked up by the button microphone on his shirt, and relayed to the technical staff at Thames House, led by Tariq Masood. Eden feels a familiar surge of adrenalin. "Target is three metres away," he adds.

* * *

The Grid - twenty-seven minutes later:

"He's good," Tariq muses, as he listens to the easy patter of Eden Hutton.

"Mmm," Erin replies, privately wishing Eden would hurry things along. So far, his conversation with Gideon Forster has been about what they each do for living - insurance for Eden, and working in the City, for Gideon. Both men know the other is spinning them a line, and given they are still speaking exclusively to one another, there is an unspoken agreement that sex will follow. Erin wishes there had been a safe way for the communication with Eden to be two way, but it was deemed too risky. As difficult as she is finding it, she is having to trust Eden. He is an experienced and skilled operative.

* * *

The Apollo Room - seven minutes later:

"It's the second room on the left."

Eden feels Gideon Forster's breath on his neck as the older man leans close to him as he speaks. They have not even kissed, although they have checked one another out, and on the stairs on their way to the room, Gideon had stopped Eden to grasp his buttock with one hand, and his cock with the other. Not subtle, then, Eden notes. A grabber, rather than a smooth operator. Pity. The older man is rather attractive - distinguished looking, perhaps late forties, early fifties - with streaks of grey in the hair at his temples. He has a nice thick head of hair, too, and by the appearance of his erection in his trousers, he's thick elsewhere.

"Here we are," Gideon says, pushing open a panelled wooden door.

Eden feels the man at his back, and when the light switch is flicked on, he takes a sudden breath.

"Who is this?" Eden asks, faced with a tall, handsome, balding man. Eden turns to face Gideon, who is standing a little too close to him. "You never mentioned we'd have company. I don't do threesomes." That isn't quite true. Eden enjoys threesomes, just not while on a job. The risks are too high.

"Good choice," the tall man says in a thick accent. Eden has already guessed the identity of the other man, who moves smoothly from the other side of a large bed towards the two of them.

Then Eden makes a mistake, one which will cost him more than he's prepared to pay. With Gideon at his back, and the tall man bearing down on him from the right, Eden only has one option available to him. He nimbly steps to his left, but the toe of his shoe catches under a rug, and he stumbles. What he doesn't see as his head crashes against the corner of a heavy chest of drawers, is both men step aside and watch as his unconscious body crumples to the floor with a thud.

* * *

The Grid - thirty seconds later:

"Dimitri, are you there?" Erin says briskly into the microphone on her headset. When Dimitri answers, she rattles off instructions. "The room is on the first floor, and is behind the second door on the left as you leave the stairs. Grab Tony and Ali, and get up there immediately."

"Will do," she hears Dimitri say in clipped tones, and then he turns off his microphone.

"We need to listen to this," Tariq says carefully, looking up at Erin. "Eden's microphone is picking up the conversation between the two men in the room with him."

"Are you recording it?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

"Of course," Tariq replies.

Those gathered around Tariq's work station silently listen as Gideon Forster and Colonel Igor Zhukov coldly discuss what to do about the unconscious form lying on the carpet at their feet.

"I vote we finish him off," they hear the Russian say.

"We can't do that. That's .. murder."

The Russian's laugh is throaty, and devoid of humour. "Like you've never killed anyone."

"That's low of you, Igor."

"But it's true. I still vote we kill him."

"I'm leaving," says Forster. "We have no idea who this kid is. Are you coming?"

"If you say so."

Once the door closes behind Forster and Zhukov, they hear nothing for around three minutes, until Dimitri, Tony and Ali arrive.

"Agent down," they hear Dimitri say, "but the two birds have flown."


	11. Chapter 11

**~ Coupledom ~**

Saturday morning - Ruth's house:

Being a balmy morning, Harry had insisted they sit in the back garden to drink their post-breakfast coffee. They have already discussed the weather (the likelihood of rain before nightfall), the coffee (just right), Harry's snoring ("I don't snore"), and how they might spend their day.

"I don't want to spend the day twiddling my thumbs while you're locked away in the office, Ruth."

"I never lock the door while I'm in there," she says, avoiding his eyes.

"You know what I mean."

She does, so she quickly lifts her eyes to his. Of course he is watching her, his eyes burning. She loves that look, the one he saves just for her, the one which has her stomach tipping, followed closely by the heat burning her cheeks. "Aren't you even a little curious about how last night's operation turned out?"

"Not even a little," he counters quickly, turning from her to gaze at the wall at the back of the garden.

"I just thought I might -"

"Ruth," he interrupts her, turning back to her, pleading in his eyes. "When I awoke, I decided we should spend the day together."

"We spend every day together."

"We need to do normal things, Ruth. We need to visit the shops; we're low on whiskey, as well as wine."

"And food also."

His smile is slow and knowing. "That too. We need to take a long walk. We need to talk about something other than last night's operation. It has ceased to be our business."

"But it might be."

"And it might not."

Ruth is used to determined Harry, stubborn Harry. "What if I just check my emails, then -"

"What if you don't, Ruth? If something is urgent, you'll receive a text message, or a phone call."

He's right, of course, and as much as she values Harry's interest and his input, this time she finds it mildly irritating. She is still mentally devising her answer when he provides an argument to which she has no answer.

"What would you rather," he says quietly, "a day spent in my company, or one where you're tucked away on your own in the office? I'm having today off, Ruth, and I'm inviting you to spend it with me."

Put like that, there is only one answer. She smiles into his eyes, reaching across the small table to grasp his hand. He squeezes her fingers lightly, his eyes conveying his gratitude. Until last night's operation had supposedly gone ahead, she had successfully managed to to separate her working and private lives, but not having heard from Calum or Erin has left her tense with anticipation.

Ruth sits back, so breaking contact with Harry. She allows the tension to leave her neck and shoulders. The sun is shining, and her lover has asked her to spend the day with him, so why is she hesitating? Ruth doesn't like unfinished business. She hates walking away before she's had the final word. She and Harry had worked well on the Russian issue, with him not once suggesting he meet Elena Gavrik. Ruth should be pleased ... and relieved, and she is. It's just that she has an inkling that last night's operation had been compromised. It wasn't the best of plans, but it was the plan Erin and Calum had formed on the fly, and to have left it even a week may have meant the loss of a window of opportunity. Given her current job description, the outcome is not her business, and yet ...

"Shopping and then a long and leisurely walk?" she suggests, and Harry's wide smile in reply relaxes her even further. She has a job, a nice house to live in, and a man who loves her, and she him. What more could she ask for?"

* * *

Afternoon is almost early evening when in the distance, nestled within the shadows of two houses of three storeys on either side, Harry spies a small park. They have wandered far from Ruth's house, but not too far that they cannot quickly return home were the heavens to open, which seems unlikely. They have spent the whole day in one another's company, and neither are surprised by how well they fit together. After all, they each already know the other well, and they accept the faults and foibles they're aware exist. hidden within the dark corners of their personalities.

While Harry has a deep desire to take control in situations where he feels out of his depth, Ruth's tendency towards evading the issue at hand can irritate his need for order.

He acknowledges there have been times when he'd shut off from her, keeping his true feelings hidden, while at the same time, Ruth's emotions can lead them down roads he'd much rather not have to travel.

He is a loner, and yet, despite her ability to look after herself, Ruth is by nature a social person. She likes people - loves them, really - while he is suspicious of the motives of others to the point of paranoia. The only person he trusts fully is her.

Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, he and Ruth rub along together rather nicely, each aware of the places they'd best not enter, in favour of what it is they do well together.

He leads her to a small bench overlooking a pond, on which swims a small family of ducks - a mother duck and three ducklings. On the other side of the pond, at some distance, a young couple sit on a bench facing them, passing a cigarette between them.

"How old do you think they are?" Ruth asks.

"They can't be any more than fourteen."

She giggles, her voice light and musical in that way he loves. "Maybe sixteen or seventeen," she counters.

"It's the hormones in the meat sold at supermarkets," he says. "It causes early growth spurts, along with mild mental retardation."

Again he hears her musical giggle, this time more of a laugh. "So, you have limited hope for the future of our country."

"I have no hope whatsoever for the future of our country," he says grumpily. In part, he is speaking truthfully to her.

Harry is relieved when Ruth drops the subject, but she doesn't remain silent for long. "I left my phone at home." Her words are spoken quietly, like she's confessing to some serious misdemeanour.

"So did I," he replies.

He feels her turn towards him, her gaze steady on his face. "What if you fall in the pond, and I have to call for help?"

"I _can_ swim, Ruth. Besides, I'm sure there's not enough water in the pond to drown someone of my size."

"What if you have a heart attack ... or a stroke?"

He turns to face her, and seeing genuine concern on her face, he decides he should take her seriously. "There are houses either side of us, and I'm sure that the smoking bandits across from us have at least one phone each."

With that, the very young couple rise from their bench, the boy tossing the remainder of the cigarette on the grass, before stubbing it out with the toe of his black trainers. Then together they leave the park, his arm slung around her shoulders, while neither offer Ruth and Harry a glance.

"We're too old for them to even see us, Harry," she whispers, leaning closer to him.

"I think it's because anyone over twenty-five is rendered invisible to the young."

They sit together, not touching, for a long time. The air is mild, and the sounds of traffic distant. They are sitting on a park bench close to the middle of London, and yet they could be anywhere. Harry is reminded of the many times he and Ruth have sat thus, discussing work, each relying on the strength and wisdom of the other.

"I love you," he says at last, his voice low, and husky with emotion.

"And I love you also ... very much. As much as it pains me to say," she continues, "I have come to rely on you. You are my rock."

"And you are my soft place to fall. My wise and clever Ruth."

During their brief declaration of love, they have not touched, and have not even looked at one another. Strange as it is, Harry accepts that this is how they are. They can convey so much to the other in a look or a brief word, but the combination of words with eye contact is often just too much. Suddenly he feels her fingers grasping his, so he turns to her, and sees her eyes lifted to his, the sheen of tears in them.

"Don't cry," he says gently, grasping her hand in his, and resting their hands on his knee.

"I'm not crying, Harry. I'm just happy."

* * *

It is getting dark outside, and together they are tidying the kitchen after dinner, when Ruth grabs her phone from the counter top beside the fridge, turning it on. He watches her while she scrolls through her emails.

"Nothing," she says at last. "No emails, and no messages. Wouldn't you think Calum would at least have sent me a progress report?"

"No news is good news," he says, sneaking up behind her to slide his hands around her waist, pulling her ever so gently against his body.

"Do you think I should ...?"

" _No_ ," he says emphatically. "I vote for an early night."

He is happy and relieved when she turns in his arms and links her own arms around his neck. "Is that an invitation?" she asks, and he answers by kissing her hungrily.

It is almost an hour later when they settle into bed together. They lie together in silence, until Ruth is the one to make the first move. She rolls over to face Harry. leaning her weight on one elbow. His eyes are on her, his pupils dilated. In one deft move, Ruth pulls her camisole over her head, tossing it on the floor beside the bed. Then she leans over him, her bare breasts resting against his chest. In warm weather, Harry wears only his underwear to bed, so just in case he hasn't quite caught the hint, Ruth reaches beneath the duvet to feather her fingertips down the skin of his stomach and to the waistband of his trunks.

He turns them over before leaning down to kiss her, and knowing where this is going, he smiles against her mouth, before tracing kisses from her mouth down her neck and throat, then her chest, and to her breasts, where he takes one nipple in his mouth, sucking and biting until he feels her squirming beneath him. He sighs heavily as her hand reaches inside his underwear. He is so relieved that he'd plucked up the courage to invite her to join him in Hastings. That must have been one of his better ideas.

* * *

Only a few kilometres away, a young consultant named Nish Toor has entered the family room on the fourth floor of the hospital to speak to Trevor and Penny Hutton, the parents of Eden. Nish hates situations such as these, although he's been told the challenge is good for his soul. The hope in the eyes of the parents as he enters the room always leaves him feeling shattered, knowing that what he has to tell them will wipe away any hope they may have that their child will be making a full recovery.

"Mrs Hutton? Mr Hutton? I'm afraid that we have run our tests, and Eden didn't respond to ..." and he continues his spiel, knowing that this set of parents, like every other set of parents he's spoken to in similar situations, would not have heard a word he's said. They're waiting for him to say, `Your son is awake, and wishes to speak to you.' In situations such as this, such outcomes are unlikely. "He's on life support," he continues, "and we have to consider the likelihood that he will never wake up."

He knows his words cut deeply, tearing the flesh like a blunt axe, but there's no other way of delivering such terrible news. He wishes he could offer them good news, but this is all he has. With each word he utters, Eden Hutton's parents' hope dies. He watches as the mother's eyes become like the eyes of every other mother he has had to warn of the probable consequences of their child's traumatic brain injury. "We'll monitor him closly for another eighteen hours, and if there's no improvement, then we recommend the machines be ..."

He rarely finishes that sentence. Like other parents before them, Trevor and Penny Hutton turn away from him, as if not seeing him might protect them from the words he has not been able to say. He knows their son will die. He just needs them to come to terms with the same realisation. At times like this, life can be shit .. for all concerned.


	12. Chapter 12

**~ The Separation ~**

Sunday, late morning - Ruth's house:

As they had the previous morning, Ruth and Harry sit at the table in the back garden over coffee, speaking only sporadically. They each know they are fast heading towards a commitment to one another, and neither quite knows how best to address the subject. Should they talk about it, or just let it happen organically, so that one morning they awaken to find they are living together under the same roof, perhaps even planning their wedding? Harry would like that, but he's not sure it's wise of him to hope for marriage with Ruth. Ruth is elusive, mercurial, and independent, while he has been married, and he was terrible at it. It's just that he'd like the chance to prove to himself, and to her, that he is capable of being a loving and loyal husband.

"I think it might rain today," she says, after they'd sat silently for some minutes, sipping their second cup of coffee.

Harry lifts his head to gaze at the sky. He thinks it looks exactly as it had the previous day - fluffy white clouds in an otherwise clear sky. "What makes you say that?"

"It's just a hunch."

Harry finds he is smiling. Of course Ruth has a hunch. Ruth's hunches are legendary ... and usually worthy of his attention. Still, as he looks at the sky in the direction of the horizon they can't see, he is sure the day will be exactly like yesterday.

* * *

Just as they had wandered into the garden with their coffee, they amble back inside. They had slept late, and even though it's nearing lunchtime, it is only just over an hour since they'd eaten breakfast.

"I feel like a walk," Harry announces, heading through to the living room to stand at the window, gazing out at the street.

"What if it rains?" Ruth counters.

As he turns towards her, he lifts his eyebrows. "We get wet. It's rain, Ruth. It can't hurt us."

Ruth hadn't any intention of not accompanying Harry on his walk. She's just testing him. Without discussing a destination, they find themselves heading in the direction of the small park where they'd sat while the teenage couple had shared a cigarette.

"I half expected to find Bonnie and Clyde on the bench, sharing their last smoke before they die in a blaze of gunfire," Harry says, as he opens the child-proof gate to allow Ruth into the park ahead of him.

"I expect we scared them off," Ruth replies, making a beeline for the bench the teenagers had occupied on their last visit. "If we sit here we can keep an eye on the gate."

Once a spy, always a spy, Harry thinks, as he sits beside her - close, but not touching.

"I like this place," Ruth announces, after they'd been sitting quietly for some minutes. "It's relaxing and private. I wish it were closer to the house."

"Half the fun is getting here," Harry counters. "Were it just down your street we'd never bother."

" _Our_ street." Her voice is quiet.

"What?"

"You said _your_ street. It's _our_ street Harry, yours and mine. The house is as much yours as it is mine."

When he remains silent, Ruth wonders has she stepped over a line. Surely he must have figured out by now that if they're to ever live together, it would have to be at her house.

"I didn't want to ... presume," he says at last, staring across the duck pond, from where the family of ducks appears to have decamped.

"If we're ever to ... cohabit," Ruth begins carefully, "my house is the obvious choice."

"I know."

"You've thought about it?"

"Of course," he says. "Haven't you?" In his quiet moments, he thinks of little else. He thinks of he and Ruth together, waking up each morning in the same bed .. for the rest of their lives.

"Yes," she says quietly. "I think we should give it a try .. soon."

"In a way we already are."

Their conversation is cut short when a young woman, accompanied by two small boys, opens the child-proof gate so that the boys can tear past her and into the park. The bigger one rushes past the little one, intent on reaching the duck pond first.

"Oscar," the woman calls, "be careful of the water ... and the ducks. Please don't frighten the ducks."

"The ducks are gone," Oscar screeches, testing the limit of his lungs and the eardrums of the three adults.

"Where ducks?" asks the smaller boy, scuttling across the grass, while the woman hurries after them.

"They're _dead_ ," Oscar says firmly, looking right at the small boy, who begins to wail loudly.

" _Jesus_ ," Harry whispers loudly. "That kid would test the patience of a saint."

"You must know what young children are like," Ruth whispers, leaning close to him. "Clearly you never took yours to the park."

He turns towards her, a frown forming. "Actually, I did. We had a park at the end of our street, and my children loved going there." He watches her for a long moment. "My two were easy .. compared to these two." He turns to watch as the younger boy's eyes scan the duck pond, and then the park around him. The ducks have clearly scarpered.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ..."

"It's an assumption that men never have to look after their children. I didn't do it often, or even regularly, but I did do it." Harry is again watching her closely. "While out of the house, my two were model children. The park near us had swings, and Catherine would instruct me to not let her brother swing too high in case he fell." He turns his head to watch Oscar and his brother, as they stand beside the pond, jockeying to see who can get closest to the edge without falling in. "Catherine was very motherly, while Graham was afraid of everything, so she made it her job to protect him. It was only when he hit adolescence that his alternate personality emerged." Ruth nods, finding it difficult to accommodate this image of Harry as a doting father to his two. "What about you?" he continues.

"As you well know, Harry, I have no children of my own."

The implications of her clear statement of childlessness sits heavily between them, and Harry experiences a brief moment of embarrassment.

"I was talking about Nico, Ruth. Was he an easy child?" Ruth quickly looks away. She hadn't expected him to go there. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have -"

"No, it's alright," she says, turning back towards him, but looking past him to where Oscar and his brother are beginning a pushing game. She considers drowning to be a distinct possibility. "When I first met George, Nico was only eight - almost nine - and he'd spent a lot of time around adults. He was so easy to care for ... other than when he missed his mother, and then he was ... inconsolable."

He reaches out to her then, gently grasping her fingers in his. He is relieved when he feels her fingers return the squeeze. "Ruth ... I'm -"

Harry is interrupted by another loud wail from the smaller of the two boys. Looking up, they see Oliver making a beeline for the large oak tree which occupies one whole corner of the park.

"Alfie, come to Mummy," the woman says from where she sits on the opposite bench, wearily holding out her arms to Alfie, who immediately stops crying before falling against her.

"Best contaceptive ever," Harry whispers, just loud enough for Ruth to hear. "Shall we go?"

Ruth nods. "It's surprising how much space two little boys can occupy."

"And that's just their voices," he replies, standing and offering his hand to Ruth, and they walk across the park, holding hands. As they pass the other bench Harry looks straight ahead, while Ruth offers the young mother a sympathetic smile.

* * *

Almost at the very moment Ruth and Harry leave the park, Eden Hutton's parents agree to having their son's life support switched off. All the tests indicate an absence of brain function. They know that without life support it is unlikely he will survive beyond a few hours, so with the heaviest of hearts, they sign the necessary paper work, and accompanied by Eden's younger sister, Camille, they enter his room to spend his final hours by his bedside.

* * *

Sunday, Ruth's house - early evening:

While Harry is downstairs preparing dinner, Ruth sneaks into the office to check her email. What she reads has her sitting silently for a long time. Not only was the operation at the Apollo Room not a success, but one of theirs has died. Eden Hutton's life support had been withdrawn just after midday, and a little over four hours later he'd died.

Feeling the need to share the news with Harry, she slowly descends the stairs, her legs and her heart leaden.

Ruth had not expected Harry's response. He lowers himself heavily onto a chair, his dinner preparation forgotten. Ruth watches while he stares at a spot on the table, saying nothing.

"Harry ... you never even met Eden."

He lifts his eyes to her, and she sees pain there."Can't you see, Ruth?" When she shakes her head, he continues, his voice a monotone. "Every major operation in which I'm involved, even indirectly ... someone either gets terribly hurt, or they die."

Ruth can't believe what she's hearing. This is not like Harry. Harry does his job, and keeps a clear head. He is stoic and strong. He is her rock, her reliable and always-there Harry. And he is never _ever_ prone to feeling sorry for himself. He abhors self pity. He grieves alone, and yet he's accepting responsibility for the death of a man he'd never met.

Very carefully, Ruth pulls out a chair to sit opposite Harry. She's at a loss how best to respond to him. His hands are folded on top of the table, while his eyes focus on his fingers.

"You know that's not true," she says carefully. "You and I, we did the best we could in the time given. The rest was down to the team."

"So now you're passing the buck," he says, again lifting his eyes, dark and accusing, to hers.

"I'm telling it as I see it. No one person can carry the responsibility for Eden's death. What about the two men in the room with him? It's not yet clear what role they played."

Harry again watches his hands, and then without warning, he gets to his feet and crosses to the cooker, turning on the burner beneath the frypan. "It's time we ate," he says, effectively dismissing the conversation.

Ruth remains sitting, her back to him. She is angry and confused. Nothing Harry has said makes sense. She cannot understand his reaction, and the answers he'd given had further confused her. "Do you need a hand?" she asks, in an effort to bridge the gap between them.

"Thanks, but no. I'm fine."

He's clearly anything but fine.

They eat in near silence, the only words spoken being about the meal, and whether the fish could do with more salt.

"I never know what level of salt you prefer, Ruth," he says, "so perhaps it's best you add your own salt."

And so it continues in a similar vein throughout the meal. Whenever Ruth tries to change the subject to Harry's response to the death of Eden Hutton, he either glares at her, or ignores her. In the end, she decides to leave well alone. Whatever he is going through, he'll eventually have to share it with her. If they are to make it through this, he cannot continue to remain in his own private bubble.

When they are both finished eating, Harry stands and gathers their plates, scraping the scraps into the bin, and rinsing the plates and cutlery under the running tap.

"Leave it," Ruth says. "I'll clean up. You go into the living room, and I'll -"

"I've decided I'd like to head home tonight," he says, his back to her, while he gazes through the window to the back garden. Ruth follows his gaze to see a bank of dark clouds building. Perhaps it will rain, after all.

She considers challenging him, but in his present frame of mind, arguing with him would be useless. "Whatever you think best," she says, all the fight having left her, "but if you're upset, Harry, you need to talk about it."

That is when he turns, leaning his hands on the edge of the sink. "I know I do. Eden's ... death has brought up a lot for me which is ... confusing, and I need to be alone for a while ... maybe a few days." Ruth opens her mouth to speak, but he lifts his hand. "Please don't try to talk me out of this. I'm sorry I won't be here to help you with the work, but ... I just need to think, and I do that best when I'm alone."

Ruth believes he needs to do less thinking, and more talking. She steps away from him, already resigned to his leaving. She knows this is not the end for them. Harry loves her, and she loves him. This is just a hiccup. At least, that is what she is telling herself.

"You know I love you," he says quietly. There it is again. Even in a crisis, Harry knows what she's thinking.

Wondering had she really heard him say those words, Ruth stops still. "What did you say?" she asks, her back still to him.

"You heard me. I told you I love you ... just in case you were wondering. This ... my need to be alone right now ... is something _I_ need. It's not about you, and it's not about us." Ruth turns then, and sees him standing upright, his hands by his sides. To her practised eye, Harry appears nervous and ill at ease. She wants to say that his need for solitude when she is there to listen to him _is_ about them, but he appears to be not in a frame of mind to listen. So she'll watch him leave, and patiently wait for him to contact her.

* * *

Less than twenty minutes later, Ruth accompanies Harry to her front door. He has no hand luggage, since most of his clothes are still at his own house, and he has personal toiletry items at both houses. He opens the door before turning towards her.

"I'll call you before I come back," he says quietly, his face grim. "I'm sorry if this hurts you, but ..."

"I know," she says quickly. If he's going now, she wishes he'd just leave, and not drag it out, making it difficult for them both.

Ruth is surprised when he leans towards her, so she lifts her face to his, and he kisses her. It's a soft kiss, a kiss filled with sadness and regret, perhaps even an apology, and just for a moment, Ruth places her hands on his cheeks, framing his face between her fingers. She doesn't want him to go, and she suspects nor does he want to be leaving her. She also has a feeling that Harry is attempting to protect her ... perhaps from his darker, intensely private self.

When he turns again and steps off the porch, Ruth notices that it's just beginning to rain. Harry jogs across the road to his car, just as the heavens open, and the rain begins in earnest. She watches as he gets into his car, quickly closing the door behind him. Then he starts the car, turning once more to look her way, before driving away.


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N : Now that this fic is (most likely, since I haven't finished writing it yet) over half way through, I need to thank readers and reviewers for your interest in this story so far.**_

 _ **I am not about to apologise for the unexpected left turn (without using indicators) which occurred in the last chapter. As much as Harry adores Ruth, he has not lived with a woman for some time, and her need for him to open up to her about what bothers him is not yet something he is comfortable submitting himself to, especially without knowing exactly why he'd reacted as he had. I felt his decision to leave to be in keeping with his history, and especially his vintage. He simply felt the need to retreat into his `cave'.**_

* * *

 **~ A Scandal? ~**

Monday morning - Ruth's house:

Ruth's time-honoured response whenever she is stressed, angry or upset has been to bury herself inside some activity or other. Given the activity must be time and energy consuming, she sometimes does housework, or cleans kitchen cupboards, or even the shelves and cupboards in her bedroom. She has lived in the house for only a little over two weeks, and with Harry under the roof most days, dirt and disorder hasn't stood a chance, so she is left with only one option. She must work. So, after a restless night, during which she had woken often, turning her head to check that the pillow beside her was empty, she rises early, eats a quick breakfast, and then with mug of hot coffee in her hand, she heads to the office.

For three days Ruth works from seven in the morning until ten at night, after which she makes cheese and bacon on toast, and then falls into bed. This routine doesn't stop her worrying about Harry, or missing his sure and solid presence, but it provides for her a much needed focus.

Monday morning's digital package from Orlando is informative. For Gideon Forster it is business as usual. On Sunday morning he'd returned to his office, and is expected to make an appearance in Parliament on Wednesday. Ilya and Elena Gavrik have taken a private plane back to Moscow, leaving their son in London, along with the remainder of the Russian delegation. Colonel Zhukov, on the other hand, has not been seen for several days. He was definitely not on the same flight back to Russia as Ilya and Elena, and according to passport control, he has not left the country.

Secretly, Ruth finds that she is pleased that Elena Gavrik has left London. She had been worried Harry would be contacted by the woman, who would insist she meet him under some pretext or other. Ruth trusts Harry, but she's certain she can't trust the Gavrik woman, for whom it would have been remiss to not make contact with the man whose bed she'd shared thirty years earlier. The news that she and her husband are safely back home in Moscow fills her with a feeling she is having difficulty defining. The term, `so there' comes to mind. As much as she longs to call Harry with the news of the departure of the Gavriks, she doesn't. No doubt he has more pressing things on his mind. Ruth just hopes that he'll need no more than four of five days away from her. She has come to rely on him being around, under her roof, assisting her with his wisdom and encouragement, and keeping her company when night falls.

Ruth finds that by six on Thursday evening, she has completed her week's tasks, a large part of which has been translating Chinese communications. She sits back in her office chair, having just sent off her report to Thames House. At almost the same moment her detailed report is sent, her mobile phone rings. She grabs it, eager for it to be Harry, but it isn't.

"Erin," she says, greeting her caller, hoping the younger woman cannot detect her disappointment.

* * *

Harry only spent two days at home alone, which is all it had taken for him to have grieved for his agents who'd lost their lives on the job. Memories of Adam and Ros and Jo had left him especially bereft, although he is aware of an underlying core of grief to do with the loss of his children from his life during the years they were growing from children into young adults. He had buried his true feelings surrounding the loss of his children beneath copious amounts of alcohol, and women, both of which were not good for him, and neither had assuaged the grief of loss. By the time he wakes on Wednesday morning, he feels calm, and ready to face the world anew. With some investigating he still needs to do on his own, he is not yet ready to contact Ruth. Firstly, he needs to go through his possessions, especially his clothes. All but two suits can go to charity shops, along with dozens of shirts he'd perhaps only worn once or twice. Then there are his ties. Knowing which ties Ruth likes best, he puts aside three, and the rest go into the box with the suits and shirts.

While throwing out possessions no longer needed, Harry has been thinking. Ideally, he would like to call Ruth with good news in relation to the circumstances surrounding the death of Eden Hutton. It is early on Wednesday afternoon that, while going through the inside pockets of the jacket of one of his suits, he finds a business card belonging to someone from his past, someone who just may be able to provide the answers he seeks. He holds the card, wondering whether a phone call would be a good idea. Why is he hesitating? It's clear to him that finding the business card of Anthea Fox is a sign he shouldn't ignore.

In the end, he decides that Anthea would be more likely to talk to him were he to meet her on her own turf, his arrival unexpected.

Energised, he dresses in one of the suits he has chosen to keep, and deciding to forego wearing a tie, he calls a taxi.

"Do you know _The Albert_ pub in Victoria?" Harry asks the taxi driver.

"I do, Guv. Nice pub that."

Harry is certain his target will be shmoozing, and her chosen place for shmoozing was always _The Albert._ He sits back in his seat and breathes out heavily.

* * *

He sees her across the room. She's so predictable. Her Wednesdays, from four o'clock on, were always spent in _The Albert_ , and that had been over ten years ago. He marches straight up to her, where she is chatting animatedly to two young men.

"Anthea?" he says quietly, standing behind her left shoulder. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

Anthea Fox must be in her mid fifties, and she is still a striking woman, her blond hair pulled back in a chignon, her startling grey eyes staring at him, her irritation clear. He doesn't speak. Although it's been more than ten years since they've seen one another, he's sure she'll still recognise him. Their affair had lasted almost three months, so it had been more than just a passing thing.

"Harry?" she says at last, her expression softening.

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Harry asks. "It's important ... and delicate."

Anthea turns away from the two young men, drawing closer to him. "I can't be seen here talking to you."

"I need to speak to you today .. _now_."

"Oh, let me guess. It's a matter of national security, am I right?"

Harry nods, his eyes darting all around him, automatically taking in his surroundings.

Anthea quickly looks around before turning back to him. She lowers her voice even further. "There's a coffee shop five doors west of here. I'll be there in fifteen minutes, and I'd quite like a chai latte."

Anthea is true to her word. Thirteen minutes later, she walks through the door of the coffee shop, and hurries towards Harry, who has only just ordered her chai latte. He hopes that she is prepared to be a loose-lipped as he needs her to be.

* * *

A little over an hour later, Harry leaves the coffee shop, Anthea having quickly left ten minutes earlier. He takes a taxi home to his house, intending to continue the clean out he had begun in his bedroom. As much as he longs to contact Ruth, Harry has one more call he wishes to make before speaking with Ruth. Once he has seen this person, he will be free to call Ruth, asking her is she ready to see him.

As difficult as the past three days have been, Harry believes that keeping his distance from Ruth has been the right thing to do. He just hopes she feels the same way.

* * *

On her return to _The Albert_ , Anthea Fox again joins Marcus and Liam, her two latest prodigies. Each is as ambitious as the other, both vying to become the top political researcher for a Labour Party backbencher.

"Old boyfriend?" quips Liam, the cheekier of the two.

Anthea rolls her eyes. "He won't take no for an answer."

Both lads laugh as though she was joking. All three of them know that Harry Pearce is not her boyfriend, and that even had he been, none of them would be about to admit it. Anthea would never risk her marriage. At least, that is the mythology she encourages among her co-workers, and that is the only message that matters.

* * *

Friday, mid afternoon - Ruth's house:

Ruth has a mild dilemma on her hands. Erin is visiting at the same time Harry is due to return from his several days of solitude. He'd rung her the previous evening, refusing to engage in chit-chat, other than to say he was meeting his son for lunch on Friday.

"I'll tell you all about it when I see you, Ruth, but I have to speak to him. It's important."

Ruth is hoping Erin will arrive after Harry, but it is the section head who arrives first, apologising for her lateness.

"You know how it is, Ruth," Erin says, as she enters the house, gazing all around her like the spy she is, "despite my arriving at all my meetings on time, none of them began on time, so ..."

"You're here now, and that's all that matters," Ruth says, leading Erin into the kitchen, where the glass doors to the back garden stand open, allowing warm afternoon air to enter the room.

"I need to pick your brains, Ruth," Erin begins, contemplating her cup of tea.

"Would it help if Harry were here?"

For just a moment Erin hesitates, and in that moment Ruth recognises that she may have said the wrong thing. Erin knows that had Harry not given away Albany, he would still be section head of Section D, and Erin would not be occupying his chair. Erin knows that, Calum aside, all members of her team would prefer Harry had been allowed to remain in the job. Erin is far from stupid. She knows that, Calum aside, the team she leads would rather they were led by Harry.

"It would add perspective, yes," Erin says diplomatically, "and would be best, given he is assisting you with your job."

"He's due to arrive about now, so ..."

"Perhaps I can outline my thoughts, Ruth," Erin says, and no sooner has she finished speaking than the sound of the front doorbell echoes down the hallway.

* * *

Ruth hurries to the door, and is about to open it with a flourish when she hesitates. How is it she _really_ feels about Harry? Although she'd understood his need for a few days on his own, she'd been hurt. She'd felt pushed aside, discarded, even if only temporarily. But she has had ample time to consider Harry's actions, and given he's spent long years as a single man, one leading a team of intelligence officers, his default response to a personal crisis has always been to isolate himself. The truth may simply be that Harry doesn't yet know how to share his inner world with her. She and Harry have not been together long enough for him to share his darkest and most personal life with her, and she hopes that this can change, and soon.

Pulling open the door, Ruth sees a new Harry. He appears rested, and the slightest turn of his lips tells her that he is pleased to be back with her. "Come in," she says quickly, standing aside to offer him entry, "Erin is already here."

Ruth is surprised when Harry leans down to kiss her, a quick `hello' kiss. When he steps away from her, she eyes him off, wondering whether a hug is out of the question, but all she is able to say is, "Why didn't you use your own key?"

He observes her in that way he has, his expression giving away nothing. "I didn't want to presume the right to entry to your home."

Ruth bites her bottom lip, biting back the words, _Our home_. Perhaps Harry has forgotten what they'd discussed when last they'd visited the park. She turns and leads him to the kitchen.

"Harry," Erin says, standing to shake hands with Harry, "it's good to see you again."

"And you," he replies politely.

"Coffee?" Ruth asks Harry, and he nods. "Top up, Erin?"

"Thank you," Erin replies.

Once they are comfortably seated, all with fresh drinks in front of them, Ruth reviews her own findings about the Gavrik couple, and Colonel Zhukov. Once she has finished, Harry sits silently, his mouth firm, his eyes staring at his coffee mug. "Are you any the wiser about how your agent may have died?"

Erin, who is sitting across the table from Ruth and Harry, stares at Ruth, hoping she has the answers Harry needs. "Not yet," Ruth says quietly. "His entry to the private room was recorded by Tariq, and there's no aural evidence of violence ... although ..." and Ruth's voice fades out.

"Although what?" Harry asks, an impatient edge in his voice.

"It's possible he was injected with something. Were that the case, he wouldn't have felt a thing, and he could have fallen and hit his head as a result."

"Erin?" Harry addresses his successor, who shakes her head.

"The evidence we have is all aural, and purely circumstantial."

Harry sighs heavily, before taking a sip of his coffee. "Yesterday I met someone I knew over a decade ago." And he launches into an account of his meeting with Anthea Fox. "She once worked directly with Gideon Forster, and so I asked her to contact him ... about Saturday night's fiasco, but first of all, I asked her did she have anything on him."

"You mean ... like a scandal?" Ruth asks, her eyes widening as she watches him, trying hard to read his mood. To her he appears detached, the way he often had been at team meetings.

Harry turns towards her and nods. "Not like a scandal. A scandal. A real doozy of a scandal, and ... one in all probability we can do very little about."

They watch one another for a long moment, knowing that they have so much they need to say to the other, and the complication of Erin's presence renders such a conversation impossible. Ruth has opened her mouth, and is about to speak, when Harry's mobile phone rings. He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and draws it out, checking the caller ID.

"I've been waiting for this call," he says, standing and glancing at each woman apologetically. "I need to take it," he says, turning towards the door to the hallway. He disappears through the door, closing it behind him, but not before they hear him say cheerily, "Anthea ... thank you for getting back to me."

Ruth glances across the table to where Erin is still staring at the closed door. "Do you know what he's talking about?" she asks, turning back to Ruth.

Ruth slowly shakes her head. "I've no idea," and she hasn't, and that annoys her. Harry has always confided in her, and just this once, he hasn't.


	14. Chapter 14

**~ Explosive ~**

Ruth's house - Friday afternoon:

"So ... all Eden did wrong was to trip?" Erin is making herself a fresh cup of coffee, Ruth having declined a third cup.

"So Gideon Forster told Anthea. She's known him a long time, and she said he sounded genuine. It seemed to him that the presence of Zhukov in the room, which Forster himself had not expected, had Eden moving quickly and so tripping on the edge of a rather large rug. It seems his death was down to ... misadventure."

Both women receive the news in silence. Ruth finds it sad that such a brave and skilled young man had to die so senselessly. She views it as yet another waste of a fine life. At least every other agent from Section D who had died in her time on the Grid had gone out with a bang ... sometimes literally. Poor Eden had died as a result of clumsiness in the face of perceived danger.

"But there's more," Harry says, glancing at Ruth, and then across the table to where Erin carefully sips her coffee, newly made. "I know that the Russian talks were meant to be about getting closer to the Russians - just in case we need muscle when dealing with the US -"

"I don't think that's likely, Harry," Erin says quickly. Ruth thinks it highly likely, and while a bond with China may be dangerous, one with Russia would prop up a struggling UK economy against the emergence of an Asian threat.

"I met Anthea on Wednesday afternoon, and what she told me was ... explosive." Harry glances down at Ruth, who is engaged in drawing an infinity sign on the table top with her forefinger. "This is a long story, but I'll try to be brief." Ruth smiles, keeping her face down. Harry being succinct; that she'd love to see. "As a result of the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, the first of the refugees from that region spread through Europe, many to the UK. Many were young - both women and men - and some were hand picked for ... specialist work."

"You mean prostitution," Ruth says snappily. She just wishes Harry would get to the point, tell his story, so that Erin would leave, leaving her and Harry free to talk.

"Yes. Those who were hand picked - both young men as well as women - were trained as domestic workers, and then sent to Russia. The metamorphosis of Russia resulted in the emergence of new wealth, and the wealthy needed home help - cleaners, maids, drivers, _especially_ drivers. On the surface it all appeared legit and above board, but what happened in wealthy households all over Russia was a growing demand for a more personal kind of home help, and so the prostitution business boomed, and the demand for younger and younger workers increased."

"And the UK was involved in this?" Erin asks, clearly disbelieving.

"We still are. It's now a necessary part of our economy, with links which go as far as Westminster."

"Gideon Forster?" Ruth asks.

"Forster won his seat on the strength of his links to this racket, although his constituents believed him to be a man of charity ... you know, giving refugees a hand up, rather than a hand out. His links to this ... business are no longer direct, and it would be difficult for anyone to prove any of this, including Forster's involvement." Harry's coffee mug is empty, so he pushes it away. "What is most interesting," he continues, "is that the chief ... the CEO, if you like, of this underground organisation, is Igor Zhukov, and his benefactors, and protectors are Ilya and Elena Gavrik. They keep sweet with the Russian oligarchs, and in return they all make a lot of dirty money. My suspicion is that the proposed Russian talks were about solidifying the role Britain plays in all this, along with some legal trickery ... to ensure that if anyone ever discovers what is going on, those at the top will not be implicated."

Ruth hadn't expected anything quite like that. She takes a moment to absorb it all. Strangely, she finds that it all makes sense to her. "You mentioned that young men are ... recruited also. Are they also used sexually?"

Harry nods, and Ruth reads sadness in his eyes. "The young Kosovar and Albanian men and boys are especially in demand, and no-one who applies for these positions knows what they are getting into. It's a scam, in which the workers are paid, but not nearly enough, and the organisers take home all the money, which the Russians are only too happy to part with."

Erin stands, moving to the sink, where she places her empty coffee cup. "I'll have to inform Vice," she says curtly. "This is hardly an issue for Intelligence. Six will also need to be informed."

"I suspect both Vice and Six are already fully informed. I imagine they are somehow involved, and skimming rewards from the spoils. Pass it on, by all means, but don't expect any real action to be taken."

Both Harry and Ruth stand, accompanying Erin to the front door. As the three of them stand near the front door, Harry continues.

"It's likely an enquiry will be conducted, but any such enquiry will only ever be for show. They might even find some low life who's making a quid from the business, and they'll somehow deem him responsible, lock him up, and that will be that. The real perpetrators - those at the top - are all protected."

Erin turns from the door to face Harry. "Do you know this for sure?" she asks.

"I trust Anthea's word, and I know her to be discreet. She wouldn't have made this up, nor would she have embellished the facts. Perhaps Tariq needs to look into this digitally, so that when you contact the police you have some names. I'd prefer Gideon Forster's and Anthea Fox's names to be kept out of this."

"But Forster is heavily implicated," Erin points out.

"Forster is now a valuable asset, especially given what it is we now have on him. He won't be much good to us were his name to be splashed all over the evening news."

"I suppose you're right," Erin concedes, before saying goodbye, and quickly leaving.

* * *

"That was some speech," Ruth says quietly, as Harry closes the door. "How much of it is true?"

"All of it," he says quickly, "and there's more, but I figured Erin already has enough to keep her mind occupied."

"Don't tell me," she says, lifting her eyes as though thinking, "you left out the bit about the guns and drugs."

Harry frowns. "How did you know?"

"I didn't. It's just that where there's prostitution there's usually drugs and guns." Ruth glances at him quickly before looking away. She knows he's right about that, at least.

Harry watches Ruth as she brushes past him on her way back to the kitchen. To his practised eye she seems curt, even annoyed, but he knows her well enough to recognise that she is reacting, not so much to the story he has just shared with them, as she is to his shady connections to Anthea. "Ruth," he says quietly, and she stops, turning slowly. "Don't I even get a hug?"

While he speaks, Harry covers the distance between them, and when he stands close to her he reaches out to touch her arm with outstretched fingers. In the end it is all terribly easy, and perfectly natural. While they each have been worried about the response of the other to their five day separation, all but the deepest doubts are pushed aside as Ruth steps into his arms. As she presses her nose into his neck she feels his full body sigh, and his arms wrap around her, pulling her closer still.

They remain that way for some time, neither wishing the embrace to end. Once they pull away from one another they will have to talk, and neither of them do that well ... not with each other. They are prone to misunderstandings and assumptions, and they've already suffered a lifetime's worth of those.

It is when Harry begins circling Ruth's back with his hand that Ruth responds by pressing a kiss against his neck. He already knows where this will end. "Ruth," he says quietly, his mouth close to her ear, "we have to talk."

She knows he's right, so very reluctantly she pulls away from him, lifting her face to smile shyly into his eyes.

* * *

"Do you still have wine?" he asks.

"Of course."

They sit at the small table in the back garden, both lifting their faces to the afternoon sun, closing their eyes, both imagining that this talk-they-have-to-have is already behind them.

"We should make the most of this," he says quietly, and when he notices Ruth look of enquiry, he adds, "because summer has almost breathed her last."

"You've made summer female," Ruth observes lightly.

"Of course. Summer is warm, and sunny, and -"

"- unpredictable."

Harry nods. She's right, of course. "Summer has curves, while winter has sharp edges .. and a beard."

Ruth's eyebrows lift. "A beard?"

Harry nods. "A beard. A scratchy one."

Ruth smiles into her wine. Sometimes Harry says odd things, but he's never dull, and she likes that about him ... _loves_ that about him.

They sip their wine, and nothing more is said until Ruth speaks. Harry is not surprised. She'd been wearing her Thinking Look, and if he knows her well, and he does, Ruth has questions, perhaps many questions.

"I've been wondering," she begins, examining her drink with more scrutiny than is required by a mere Italian white from Sainsburys, "where all these extra young people come from. The Balkan countries have regrouped, and are thriving. Perhaps -"

"Anthea told me they're currently mining Africa ... Libya, Tunisia, Morocco. There's a demand for exotic staff in Russia, and African children - because it's children who are being sent to Russia - some as young as nine and ten, are used to having to work."

"That's ... criminal," Ruth murmurs. "Do you think Erin will get anywhere with this?"

"Not a chance. The web has deep roots in our society, and given the court system and the upper echelons of the police are probably involved, anyone with the power to change this will simply turn the other way while this continues. Nothing is likely to change .. at least, not in the immediate future, and perhaps not even in our lifetimes."

Harry reads distress in Ruth's eyes. He has known for some time how dark the world is, and how evil begets even more evil, but Ruth still prefers to believe in a world where good always overcomes evil. Maybe one day ...

"You have something to tell me?" she says, effectively changing the subject.

"You're referring to my days away," he says quietly, lifting his eyes quickly, and just as quickly dropping them.

Harry knows that if he and Ruth are to make it together, he will have to get used to confiding in her. What he is about to tell her is not about some operation or other. This time it is not an inexperienced agent, or a politician who is causing him concern. This time it is personal, and he has no idea how Ruth will react. He shuffles on his chair, searching for the right place to start. He takes a big swig from his wine glass, hoping that the alcohol will help. It doesn't.

"I was upset about Eden's death, not because of the man himself, but because of what he represented to me," Harry begins quietly. "I spent the best part of two days grieving .. all the section's losses. I confess that I cried quite a lot." He lifts his eyes to Ruth's, catching her quick nod. "But ... the real reason I was so upset by Eden Hutton's death was not just because he was a young agent working at Section D. The real reason was his sexuality."

"I hadn't thought you to be judgemental, Harry."

Looking up at Ruth, he sees a frown on her face. "I'm not." Again, Harry takes a gulp of his wine, and once again, the wine has nothing to say to him. He is on his own. "A couple of weeks ago, when I helped my son move into a flat with his mate from work, I was dumping a pile of his things on his bed, and on the bedside table I saw a couple of photos in frames. I was in the room alone, and I confess that I took a closer look at the photos, and what I saw ... took me completely by surprise." He glances across the table to see Ruth's eyes widening with recognition of what he is about to tell her. "Both photos were of Graham with his arms around a young man."

"Your son is gay," she says, perhaps unnecessarily.

"It appeared that way."

"And no-one had told you? Not him, nor his mother, or your daughter?"

Harry shakes his head, and seeing the brief moment of distress in his eyes, Ruth quickly gets up and sits in the chair next to Harry. She leans close to him, and grasps one of his hands in both of hers. When she feels his lips touching her temple in a brief kiss, she knows how much it must have taken for Harry to have shared this news with her.


	15. Chapter 15

**~ Fathers and Sons ~**

Friday - late afternoon - Ruth's house:

"I was late arriving today because I needed to see Graham in person, and to ask him why he'd thought it a good idea to keep this fundamental news about himself from me."

"How is it you hadn't ... twigged?"

Ruth is sitting up, still occupying the chair next to him, having left her wine across the table from where they are both sitting. She still grasps one of his hands, and after her nod of encouragement, Harry's whole sorry history with his son spills out. He speaks in a low monotone, his attempt at keeping his emotions in check, and this time he edits nothing. He tells her about the sensitive child who'd seen little of his father after the divorce. Then there was the angry adolescent for whom all his failures and shortcomings, as well as his many fears, had been blamed on his absent father. The mother and sister had been sworn to secrecy, so by the time Graham, at the age of seventeen, had begun regularly using alcohol and drugs, blaming his choices on his father's continuing absence, Harry had believed it prudent to stay away.

"I believed him, Ruth. I believed what he said. I _was_ an absent father, and I believed that it was best I protect him by my continuing absence. I believed that I alone was the root cause of the lad's problem. I had no clue about the underlying issue."

"And no-one thought to tell you?" Harry shakes his head, his distress clear. "Not your ex-wife ... your daughter?"

"Graham begged them not to."

"Why would he do that?"

"When I met him for lunch today, he confessed that he'd been afraid of my response to the truth, so ..."

"But you were bound to find out some time."

Harry nods, then feeling Ruth leaning against him as she squeezes his hand, he reaches down to kiss the top of her head.

"That's just so sad," she says once he leans away from her.

"In the end, it's not really an issue for me. So long as my son is happy and fulfilled, the person sharing his bed is irrelevant. He's still my son, and I .. love him."

Harry drops Ruth's hand, quickly standing to take their two empty wine glasses through to the kitchen. Ruth turns to observe him through the glass doors while he empties the last of the wine into their glasses, his expression hiding the deep well of unexpressed emotion bubbling just beneath the surface. He has just opened up to her, confessing a shameful truth about his own past, all the while holding his emotions in check. _Still the spy_ , she thinks.

Back at the table, Harry takes a welcome sip of his wine, aware that Ruth is watching his every move. "I suppose there were signs, and in retrospect I can see them, but at the time, I saw nothing beyond the sensitive child. He even had girlfriends, although it's possible they were friends who happened to be girls. Even when he began drinking, his mother said it was the reaction of a sensitive soul to a world into which he didn't fit, and I was unable to read anything more into her words."

Harry feels he has done nothing but talk for the past hour, so he sighs, hoping Ruth hasn't any more questions. He turns to see her focusing on the back wall of the garden, where a lone starling sits on a branch of the wisteria, the main stem of which twists its way up and across the wall.

"That bird's been listening to us," Ruth says quietly. "I suspect she thinks humans are unnecessarily complicated creatures."

Harry smiles. "Thank you for listening to me," he says, "and thank you for not asking too many questions. I'm still having to get my head around the monumental misunderstanding between Graham and me. With just that one realisation, everything between us has changed." When Ruth turns back to him, he continues. "Today, when Graham and I parted after lunch, we hugged one another. We haven't hugged since he was a child."

Seeing the sheen of unshed tears in Harry's eyes, Ruth again reaches out to grasp his hand. "I love you," she says, rubbing her palm across the back of his hand. Back and forth, back and forth she moves her palm, until she slides her fingers between his, feeling the responding grab of his own fingers. The threading of their fingers binds them, rendering them so strong they're unlikely to be parted, other than by the most extreme and fundamental of forces.

"It's been quite an eventful few days for you," she says, and all he can do is to nod, hoping his eyes speak to her as eloquently as hers do to him.

* * *

As he stands under the shower, allowing the warm water to cascade over his scalp, before streaming over his shoulders and down his body, Harry admits that he is exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Sharing his life with another has its advantages, but as much as he'd not been looking forward to sharing his inner world with Ruth, he knows that she will accept nothing less than total honesty from him, and _they_ will be better for his disclosure. He had sailed through much of his marriage to Jane with his inner life protected by several heavy and immovable doors, and a Yale lock or three. When she had begun to scratch the surface of the private world he'd inhabited, she had been hurt and angry, and all these years later, he now understands the depth of that hurt.

Thus, he has come to the conclusion that in more ways than one, Ruth is good for him. Her need for openness and honesty will mean that he'll no longer be free to close down around her, and to wander off somewhere to lick the deepest of his wounds. She is interested in what he thinks, how he feels, and he suspects she also needs to know the details around his brief affair with Anthea Fox. As he sees it, what happened in the past needs to remain there, but Ruth will never accept that brush-off, so it's best he not employ it.

When at last he crawls into bed beside Ruth, her reading light is off, and he is almost certain she's asleep, so he turns on to his side with his back to her, and closes his eyes, expecting to fall asleep quite quickly.

"Don't I even get a goodnight kiss?" she asks, as soon as he has relaxed enough to be hovering on the edge of sleep.

Harry turns over to see Ruth watching him, her large eyes darkened in the half light. "I thought you were asleep," he says.

"I almost was," she replies, still watching him, saying nothing more. "I need to ask," she says at last, and Harry is sure he knows what it is she is about to say. "How does it feel when you meet an old lover years after you were together?"

Harry resists a deep sigh. "You could have asked me this over dinner," he says, hopefully not unkindly.

"Not unless we'd first turned out the lights."

Harry doesn't know how to answer her. To him, there is no doubt, and no need for her to be questioning him. "Ruth ... the fact that I'm in bed with you and not her should be answer enough."

"Were you not even a tiny bit attracted to her when you saw her again after ... how many years was it?"

"Around ten or eleven. I can't remember exactly. I didn't say she isn't still attractive, because she is, but she belongs in my past, and not my present. My present and future is with you."

"So .. you didn't look at her and think -"

"Ruth .." Harry says, and she can detect tiredness in his voice, "how have you felt when faced with a lover from your past?"

Ruth lies still, taking herself back to the lovers she had in university, and her years working in GCHQ. She knows her list of lovers to be nowhere near as long as Harry's, and she is having difficulty remembering the names of several. "I can't remember ..." she begins.

"You can't remember any of them?"

"No. I can't remember seeing any of them again, other than Brenton Quist, and I only dated him three times, and then I saw him soon after I returned from exile. He's now an analyst at Six. I was never all that keen on him in the first place."

"So why did you go out with him?" _And why did you turn me down when you wanted to have dinner with me a second time?_ is a thought Harry keeps to himself.

"I can't remember now. It was over ten years ago. When I saw him more recently, I wondered why I'd ever thought going out with him was a good idea."

"So you see ...?" Harry says quietly, hoping the conversation is over. For a woman who displays confidence in her work, Ruth can be bewilderingly, frustratingly complex in her personal interactions.

"You think I'm being ridiculous," Ruth says, and Harry can detect the hurt in her voice.

"No, Ruth. I think you're over-thinking something which is quite simple. My former relationship with Anthea began and ended ten or eleven years ago, and I have no regrets about that. Besides, she was married at the time, and it was with her that I recognised my pattern of dating women who were unavailable to me."

"Why would you do that?" Ruth asks, after a long silence.

"I suppose because I didn't want the complication of a committed relationship."

"But you do now."

"You know I do."

"Is she ... Anthea .. still married?"

"Her marriage only lasted another few months, and she's now with her second husband; they've been married eight years. He's a diplomat ... in Syria."

"He's Syrian?"

Harry knows that this line of enquiry will continue until Ruth again feels secure within their relationship. "He's English. His mother was Syrian."

"So they spend a lot of time apart."

"Yes. When I met her on Wednesday, I asked the same thing. She said the separations are good for them, and each reunion makes the time apart worth it."

"I'd hate that," Ruth says quietly.

"Spending long months apart?"

"I'd hate to be parted from you again."

"I know," Harry replies. "I couldn't bear it were it to happen again, which is why I thought ..."

"What? What did you think?"

He lifts himself up to rest his weight on one elbow, so that he looms over her. She really is so very small in comparison to his bulk. Harry tends to forget that the woman with such an intellect, and the power to bring him to his knees, has a rather delicate physical presence, one which never fails to activate his desire to protect her.

"I've also been thinking ... while I was away from you these past few days." Seeing her eyes widening in what he can only assume is fear, he quickly continues. "I thought, if it's alright with you, I might move in here ... permanently ... with you."

Ruth's expression changes slowly from fear to joy. "Really? You're not just saying that."

"I wouldn't lie about something as important as this, Ruth. I spent part of my time at home going through my stuff, throwing out what I no longer need, so that I can bring my personal possessions here."

"When can you do it ... moving in, that is?"

"I thought I might do it tomorrow. After I gave my suits and shirts to charity, there wasn't a lot left to keep."

Again, Ruth's eyes move away from his, and he knows she's thinking. "What about your furniture?" she asks at last.

"I haven't worked that one out, yet. For the time being, it stays where it is."

Tired from holding his weight on one elbow, Harry lies back against his pillow, before turning to face Ruth. Beneath the duvet, he reaches out to her, winding his arms around her, and pulling her closer, until her face is against his throat, and his chin rests on the top of her head. Lying together in that way, Harry can still feel tension in Ruth's body.

"What is it?" he asks at last. "Something's still not right with you."

"I'm .. worried that my jealousy ... of that other woman ... might have you rethinking the wisdom of being with me."

"Firstly, I suspect it's insecurity, rather than jealousy, and secondly, it will take more than that - far more - to turn me away from you. I'm here because I really want to be."

When he feels her lips press against the skin of his neck, Harry pulls out of the embrace to place a soft kiss on her mouth, a kiss which lasts for a long moment, without becoming passionate. "I think, after all that's happened today, we need to sleep," he says, once he ends the kiss.

Again, Ruth nestles her face against his shoulder and closes her eyes, and with their bodies wound loosely together, they allow sleep to overtake them.


	16. Chapter 16

**~ Moving In ~**

Saturday morning:

By the time Ruth makes it downstairs, Harry has already eaten breakfast, and is cooking bacon and eggs for her. She would have been happy with toast, but eating food prepared for her by her lover is a pleasure from which she is yet to tire.

Her eggs and bacon eaten, Ruth sits back with a fresh cup of coffee while Harry washes their dishes and tidies the kitchen. It is clear to her that Harry is a man of habit, operating according to patterns which have served him well during his long years as a bachelor, perhaps seeded during his time in the army. His habits of tidiness are a pleasant change for her. The last person with whom she'd shared a living space had been Beth, and as enjoyable as her company had been, her flatmate hadn't been terribly acquainted with anything in the kitchen other than the fridge. By comparison, Harry is easy to have around.

They arrive at Harry's house before nine o'clock, and he leads her down the long hallway to the kitchen. "I still have a few things in the cupboards - cereals, rice, sugar, that kind of thing."

For Ruth, it is the first and only time she has visited Harry's house. She is surprised - even a little shocked - by how little the house matches the man. It is a stark and empty space, with only the most necessary furniture in each room. Nothing of Harry's personality remains, not his passion, nor his warmth, or his flair.

Seeing her expression, Harry provides an explanation. "I bought this house around five years ago. It was so much closer to work. Since then I haven't really had the time to ..."

".. move in properly?"

His smile is soft and knowing. "Something like that."

Harry leads her upstairs, where the first door on the right from the landing is his office.

"You'll be bringing your computer," she suggests, when they are standing in the middle of his small, but functional office, "and your laptop."

"I thought I might."

The last room along the upstairs hallway is Harry's bedroom. Apart from some clothes in neat piles on the bed, he has emptied it of everything personal, and all that remains is a large walnut wardrobe, a matching chest of drawers, and the bed, covered with a dark blue duvet. Ruth thinks the bed looks comfortable. She is about to suggest he have the bed moved to their new house, when Harry again appears to read her thoughts. He reaches out to her, grasping her hand and then squeezing her fingers.

"I'd thought the same thing," he says, "but this bed, which I bought not long after I moved in, represents hopes which were never realised."

"Hopes?" He nods. "With _me_?" Harry nods again. "I could hardly have read your intentions, Harry."

"Here was I thinking my intentions towards you were quite clear."

"Not to me."

Harry turns towards her, then, and for a brief, mad moment, Ruth thinks he might be about to propose marriage to her ... again. The last time hadn't gone well at all. "I have to confess something." He hesitates, and with that hesitation, Ruth is almost certain that his second proposal is imminent. _It's still too soon for this_ , she thinks, but fortunately, Harry's thoughts are on more mundane things. "I've thrown out almost all my clothes. Well ... perhaps not thrown out, exactly. I gave them to a charity shop. What you see here, on the bed, is all I'm bringing with me."

Moving closer to Harry's Bed Of Hope, Ruth sees not nearly enough clothes for a man like Harry. "I thought you'd want to bring some of your suits, and trousers and ties, and what about ... underwear? This is not nearly enough clothing for you."

"I thought you'd be pleased," he says.

"What happens when all your clothes are in the wash?"

"I buy more. Wouldn't you rather that than I drag all my clothes to the new house? I just couldn't face bringing everything."

"What about your books .. and music?"

"They're all in the living room .. in boxes."

"Your collection of whiskey ... and other drinks."

"I have three full bottles of whiskey, and one I've opened. I'm not an alcoholic, Ruth."

"Good. That's good." Then she notices his suits. "Only two?"

"A dark one for funerals, and the light grey for ... happier occasions."

That is when Ruth's face softens in a smile, and she covers the distance between them to wrap one arm around his waist, grasping him in a quick hug. "I'm glad you thought to keep a suit for happier occasions, because I'm hoping there will be plenty of those."

* * *

Almost everything Harry is taking to their shared house is packed into the back of his Land Rover, and Ruth is closing the back of the vehicle, while Harry is inside, moving from room to room, checking that nothing important has been left behind. Ruth had noticed the slim young man getting out of a car further down the street, but she'd not given him her attention until he is standing beside Harry's vehicle, from where she senses he is watching her.

"I'm assuming you're Ruth," she hears him say, and she glances up at him in with what she is sure is part shock, part surprise.

Ruth feels her eyes narrowing as she takes in his short brown hair, his thin nose, his pale grey eyes, and his full lips. He bears just enough resemblance to his father - although not a lot - for her to let down her guard, her face relaxing into a smile. "I am, and I'm guessing you're Graham." When the young man nods, Ruth flicks her eyes towards the house. "Harry's inside. We were not expecting you."

Graham nods, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, no mean feat, given his jeans fit him with little room to spare. "Dad mentioned something about emptying his house today. I thought he might need a hand."

Ruth stands away from the Land Rover, wiping her hands, one on the other, to flick off any grit or dirt. "It's good to meet you at last," she says, reaching out to shake Graham's hand. "Your father will be happy to see you."

"Are you sure?"

Ruth is sure she sees a flicker of a smile on his lips. She nods. "Believe me when I say he will."

* * *

Ruth waits a few minutes before she follows Graham into the house. She is surprised to find him in the living room on his own, browsing through the books Harry has chosen to leave behind. She hears Harry in the kitchen, engaged in a one sided conversation, clearly on the phone.

"I used to hate the way his work followed him wherever he went," Graham says quietly.

Ruth turns to see him holding a copy of _Every Man's Guide To Camping_. "It's just the way the job is, Graham. It's not 9 to 5."

"I know." Graham returns the book to the book shelf. "I guess he's not planning to go camping," he says, stepping away from the bookshelf to look at Ruth quizzically.

"Not if he wants to be spending time with me," she replies. "Camping and I are ... incompatible."

"He still has a few things to pack," Graham observes, glancing around the room.

"Harry's already packed everything he's taking to .. the other house. I suspect he'd be happy were you to take anything you like."

Graham nods. "I know he would. I'd quite like a few pieces of furniture. The flat I moved into is rather sparsely furnished."

Neither Ruth nor Graham had noticed that Harry has ended his call, and is standing in the doorway between the living and dining rooms. "You're welcome to take whatever you want, son," Harry says, lifting an eyebrow. "I suggest you take a wander around, and make a list of what you'd like, and I'll arrange to have it delivered to your flat."

Graham nods. Ruth has noticed that he only speaks when he has something to say. Why use words when a nod, or a shrug, or a smile will do?

While Graham and Harry wander through the rooms of the house, chatting quietly as they go, Ruth glances through the books Harry is leaving behind. Most of the books on the shelves appear old and well thumbed, as though he had carried them with him since adolescence. There is a book on scouting in Britain, and three on camping, an anthology of military terms, and a history of World War Two. Ruth wonders is it told just from the viewpoint of the winning side, or is it a balanced account of all who took part. She imagines it's the former - a skewed account of the war through the eyes of the British military. There are a few novels, all of them to masculine tastes, all of them published prior to 1980. Ruth understands why Harry has left them on the shelves. Perhaps he needs to take the lot to a charity shop. She can't imagine Graham will want them.

* * *

"You seemed to be getting on well," Ruth announces once they are in Harry's car, and have reached the end of the street.

Harry knows that she is speaking about him and his son. "We've turned a corner, yes," Harry says quite formally, turning his car around the corner which will lead them to another road. "When we're all more settled - he is his flat, and me in the house with you - we need to have dinner together."

Ruth nods. "Does he have a partner?"

"Not at present. The man in the photo by his bed was his last partner. They broke up a couple of months ago, and Graham is still ... the word he used was `raw'. I know that feeling. I thought that perhaps he could come to dinner at ours ... in a couple of weeks."

Again Ruth nods. Whatever makes Harry happy is fine by her, and even though she'd only spoken to Graham for a few short minutes, she already likes him. He is a man of few words, where Harry can be verbose; Graham is sensitive to the feelings of others, where Harry thinks nothing of steamrolling others to get his own way; Graham is slight, taking up little space, while Harry is like an oak tree, casting shadows whenever others stand close to him.

* * *

Being Saturday, they have taken a walk after lunch, and once more they find themselves at the gate leading into the small suburban park. On the fence beside the entrance is a sign painted on metal, a sign she'd not noticed on their previous visits. " _No dogs. No alcohol. No bicycles or skateboards. No golf,_ " Ruth reads aloud. "Wouldn't it be better were it worded less aggressively? They could have said something like: _Please enjoy our park. You and your family are welcome, although dogs, alcoholic beverages, bicycles, skateboards, and golf equipment must be left outside the gate_."

Harry smiles down at her as he opens the gate for her to enter the park ahead of him. "That sounds much more civilised, yes," he says. "I do wonder why those who made that sign chose to mention golf. Why not basketball? Or football?"

"Or hurling? Or kite surfing?"

"Or cricket. A game of cricket can be dangerous."

"There's not enough room for cricket in here," Ruth says definitively, not that she knows anything about cricket, other than it appears to take up a lot of space, and even more time.

Inside the park, a group of six young people - all aged somewhere in their teens - lie on the grass in one corner, barely noticing Ruth and Harry as they sit on a park bench, overlooking the duck pond, where the mother duck and several ducklings swim randomly, criss-crossing their way across the pond.

"I brought you here," Harry says quietly, leaning closer to Ruth, "because I have something to tell you ... to warn you about."

The word, `warn', has Ruth turning on the bench to face him, and he sees that her eyebrows are drawn together in a frown. "I hope this isn't bad news," she says, "not now, not when we've only just moved in together."

Harry is clearly uncomfortable, and this worries Ruth further. "When we were at my house, and just after Graham arrived, I had a call from Erin. She had an idea, which I thought might work to put the wind up the Russian's still in London."

"You mean Sasha Gavrik, and his biological father?"

"Yes." Harry appears wary, uncomfortable, and Ruth knows that is unlike him. "She suggested I let them believe that I know more about their exploits in London and elsewhere than I do. She says, and I agree with her, that to confront them directly would catch them on the wrong foot."

Ruth doesn't need him to spell this out to her. "You mean ... you're going to meet Sasha?"

"That's what I mean."

"On your own?"

"It would be pointless to meet him accompanied by some heavy."

"I was thinking more of me," Ruth says quietly.

"You?"

"That's what I said."

"Not a chance, Ruth."

"Don't even think of avenging Eden's death, Harry."

"I'm not. It's meant to be a fact-finding mission, and along the way, I thought I might let them know ... what it is we know."

"To what end?"

"The arrogance of these people is what protects them, but it's also a sign of their weakness. Were they to know that they're being watched, they just _might_ make a mistake or two."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then nothing has been gained, but nor has it been lost."

Ruth watches him closely, and for a long time. "Do you expect to be in danger?"

Harry waits, his eyes on the ducks. When he speaks, he doesn't look at Ruth. "Not really. Hurting me won't help their cause in any way."

"But it might happen regardless."

Harry ignores her implication. "I have to try," he says. "I have to go anyway."

Ruth sits back, turning away from him. This is one of those times when she wonders whether she knows Harry at all. In that moment, she wishes they'd never left Hastings.


	17. Chapter 17

**~ Facing the Past ~**

It is five days later, and Harry has taken a taxi to a location where he and Sasha Gavrik have agreed to meet. It is in the open, in central London, in full view of passers by. Ruth is in the upstairs office working, but not really working. She is going through the motions of working. When her phone rings, she grabs it, answering in a gabble of unintelligible words, eventually managing to get out the words, "Ruth speaking."

"It's me," says the voice she most wishes to hear, the dearest voice she knows.

"I know," she replies, wishing she'd said nothing.

"I'm early," Harry says, and through the phone she can hear the sounds of traffic, footsteps, and the murmur of many human voices.

"That's good, although I'm not sure Sasha will care."

"Wish me luck, Ruth," and Ruth is sure she can detect uncertainty in both his voice, and his words.

"Harry, you can always back down. No-one seriously expects you to do this, least of all me."

"Too late," he says quickly. "I can see Sasha approaching," and he ends the call without even saying goodbye.

Ruth knows what this is about. She believes it's about Harry proving to her, and himself, that he still has what it takes. Not for the first time in her life, she wishes she could turn back time.

* * *

For this meeting Harry has chosen to wear his dark suit, with a white shirt and red tie. He likes to think of it as his `I'm the one in charge here,' outfit. He hopes Sasha is able to read his unspoken message. He watches Sasha as he approaches, also dressed in a suit, of pale grey, with a blue tie. Sasha has grown into a handsome young man, his long, straight nose, and striking bone structure perhaps inherited from his mother, while the rest of him is either a throwback into Ilya's heredity, or the expression of genes from somewhere else altogether. As the younger man approaches, Harry can see that he has striking blue eyes, almost the same shade of blue as his tie. Clever choice, he thinks.

Harry steps forward, into Sasha's eyeline, and watches as Elena's son focuses on him. He and Ruth have already discussed this meeting in some detail, and she had (wisely) advised him to be honest about the important stuff, and to avoid where possible his own tendency towards baiting those he considers weaker than he is, or unworthy of his respect. Harry considers Sasha to be neither. He is FSB, so he's no lightweight, and he'd best not treat him as such.

Sasha slows, and then stops just out of Harry's reach, while people hurry past them, darting around them to avoid bumping into them, all of them having somewhere terribly important to be. If only they knew, Harry thinks. Here he is, a disgraced former Mi5 section head, meeting a current member of the Russian secret service; just a couple of well-dressed men stopping for a natter in a central London square.

"Harry Pearce, I believe," Sasha says in heavily accented English, offering his hand for Harry to shake. Harry nods, grasping the hand offered, and enduring the ritual of shaking hands, something he'd been hoping to avoid.

"Sasha," he says, and he can't help the smile which turns his lips upwards. "It's been a long time."

"You called," Sasha says quickly, "and I came running."

"Don't tell me you're not even the tiniest bit curious," Harry says, reining in his desire to show Sasha who is in charge here.

"Of course I'm curious. We spies are a curious lot."

"Is there somewhere we can go which is not quite so ... open?" Harry asks, knowing that this is not advisable, and he had assured Ruth he'd not leave the public square. Harry knows that Ali Mustafa, a field agent with Section D, is watching from beneath a tree at the edge of the square. Erin had insisted. Ruth had shown him a photograph of Ali - short, slim, full beard, and with a full head of curly dark hair, which falls over his eyes, while he ties the rest of it back in a pony tail. At the edge of his vision Harry sees Ali, dressed in baggy chinos, leather sandals, and an equally baggy black jumper, browsing a newspaper, apparently disinterested in everything around him. No doubt Sasha has at least one Russian field agent watching them, so it's not as though their meeting will go unnoticed.

"There's an outdoor coffee shop just over there," Sasha replies, so together they wander to the other side of the square, where Harry chooses a table for two in Ali's line of sight.

"My buy," Harry says, and when Sasha asks for an espresso, Harry heads inside the shop to order.

* * *

While sipping their coffees the two men say little. Harry asks Sasha for his impressions of London, and Sasha declares it `noisily pretentious' and `a prime example of Western excess', which brings a smile to Harry's lips. Sasha suggests Harry disclose his reasons for the meeting, and Harry replies with "all in good time". They then resort to discussing the weather, which is turning autumnal, but thankfully dry.

When there is a lull in their conversation, Harry glances around them distractedly, deciding it's about time he dived in the deep end. "I know what the talks were meant to be about," he says quietly, watching Sasha's face for signs of surprise. He is not surprised when there are none.

"I'd be disappointed were you to not know," Sasha says, reflecting Harry's behaviour by gazing around the square. "In fact," he says, bringing his gaze back to Harry, "I have someone waiting to speak to you. They know far more about the subject than I do."

"The Colonel?"

Sasha smiles, and Harry notes that as well as a perfectly chiselled jawline, the younger Gavrik also possesses a rather nice set of teeth. Things _have_ changed in Russia since _glasnost,_ although Harry suspects Sasha's dentist is in London, and not Moscow.

"Come," Sasha says, standing, "it's not far from here."

They leave the square through a lane between two office buildings, and crossing only one street, Sasha leads Harry to a set of steps leading down to a basement flat. "He's down here," Sasha says. "Follow me."

Harry knows that by following Sasha into the flat he is taking a risk, but he needs to settle his mind. He needs to discover the truth. Sasha closes the door behind them, and then points Harry towards a door to the left. "In there," he says. "I'll not be joining you."

Harry nods, and opens the door, but not before taking a deep breath. He hopes Colonel Igor Zhukov is the friendly type, but he suspects he may have walked right into a trap. The only comforting thought available to him is that, as a former intelligence officer, he is no longer high on the pecking order, and so he has little information to offer.

He walks through a small ante room, and then into a large drawing room, where red appears to be the main theme - red walls, red drapes, red upholstery on the chairs. _Hardly subtle_ , he thinks. Then Harry hears a noise from behind his shoulder. He turns, and for a second or two, is so surprised that he is stuck for words.

* * *

The phone call to Erin had told Ruth very little. Ali has followed Harry and Sasha to an address only a few minutes walk from the square, and both men had disappeared downstairs. Ali has been replaced by Dimitri Levendis, who sits in a car opposite the downstairs flat.

"Whose name is on the lease of the flat?" Ruth had asked.

"Tariq is still working on that," Erin had replied. "The flat is leased by a company, but he still has to discover the signatories."

Ruth is restless, and worried. Harry is not a young man, and he hasn't been in the field for several years .. not properly. He shouldn't have gone, not without a companion. Ruth believes she should have gone with him, if only to throw the Russians onto the back foot.

When her phone again rings, Ruth grabs it, and answers quickly. This time it's Calum. "Erin has given me the job of keeping you in the loop, Ruth. The signatory on the lease is someone called Sergei Salkov. I've never heard of him, but -"

"I recognise that name. I think he might be a member of the Russian party, and it's possible he is still in London."

"Right," Calum muses, "so no surprises there, then."

"Keep me informed," Ruth says quickly, before hanging up.

Ruth spends the next twenty minutes researching Sergei Solkov, and what she finds is nothing out of the ordinary. He has no special job, apart from being chief secretary to the visiting party. For now, she has reached a dead end.

There is, however, one thing about which she is sure. She never wants Harry to go into the field again ... not for any reason, no matter how important he believes it is that he is the one to be going.

* * *

"I was under the impression you'd returned to Russia," Harry says, chiefly to hide his shock.

"Surely, Harry," Elena says, "there have been times in your career when you've used a body double."

"So Ilya returned to Russia with your body double?"

"Who said anything about Ilya returning to Russia?" Elena's voice is silky smooth. She stands, and slowly approaches Harry. He doesn't trust her one bit.

"What about the Colonel?"

Elena flicks her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Oh, Igor is out with some friends. He won't be back until much later. I though you might like to speak to me on my own." She lifts her chin, and stares at him in what is clearly a blatant invitation.

Harry sighs heavily. Were he still the spy he'd once been, he'd pretend to be pleased to see her, perhaps make a move to embrace her. He thinks about it, and the very idea makes him feel terribly weary. It's best he say what he came to say, and then leave. He already has a lot of explaining to do before Ruth will be happy with him.

"I know you're no longer with Mi5," Elena says silkily, "and that you and your former .. _analyst_ are working together. You were good once, Harry, but I suspect you've lost your edge."

"I'm not here to discuss me," he says curtly. "I need you and .. Zhukov to know that it is now common knowledge what you are doing in London, and what the talks were to be about."

"The talks were to be about trade, and about opening up the lines of communication between our two countries."

"Bullshit," he says quietly, the edge of menace in his voice. Harry is pleased when Elena takes a half step away from him.

"Please sit down," she says, indicating the large oval table at one end of the room.

Harry shakes his head. "No, Elena. I'm not about to play happy families with you. I know Sasha is not my son. I suspect Colonel Zhukov to be his biological father."

When Elena smiles into his eyes, her stare reptilian, he knows he has unsettled her. She had always been the one in charge of their interactions; he'd been much younger then, more driven by the desires of his body. Without knowing he needed to, Harry is now taking back the pieces of himself he'd left with her in Berlin. The guilt he has carried over her and Sasha has weighed upon him every day since. Every encounter with Elena had been a lie. If he hadn't been using her, then she had been using him. Harry is already feeling lighter, happier, more himself.

"I have a message from the person who is now in my chair at Mi5." He doesn't, but he's winging it, and sometimes that is the best approach. "She says that she'll be keeping a sharp eye on you and Ilya and Sasha, and especially Igor." Erin won't be, but someone will be. "We know about your trafficking of children -"

"We are doing _humanitarian_ work," she says coldly.

Harry throws back his head and laughs. _Seriously_? He suspects Elena actually believes her own lies. "You are sending young girls and boys - _underage_ girls and boys - into situations where they are being preyed upon. You are facilitating _rape_ , Elena. I hope that makes you proud."

"These young people would starve to death were they not in our employ. What we do keeps them alive, and gives their lives purpose. Some of them have even found work outside the homes where they were first taken in. Some girls work in offices, and I know of four African boys who are training as truck mechanics. Maybe one day they can return to their families. Maybe they will one day be rich."

Harry shakes his head. The woman is deluded. She appears to believe her own fantasy. He's had enough, so he turns towards the small ante room, but Elena has not yet had the last word.

"You are a fool, Harry," she says, her voice hard. "Half your parliamentarians are involved. We pay them well, and they turn a blind eye. Gideon Forster is only one of many."

"How many?" he asks, turning back to face her, the woman he had once believed he loved.

"Enough that we are assured impunity." Elena waits, watching Harry closely. "Why don't you join us? You'll never again have to work for a living."

"Only those filled with hate are capable of such things," Harry says angrily, this time turning towards the door.

He opens the door to leave, but not before he hears Elena utter one last comment. "You'll be sorry, Harry. You always were too noble for your own good. God doesn't reward the good among us ... only those who are prepared to take risks, and break the rules."

Harry slams the door behind him. He looks around in search of Sasha, but no-one is there, so he leaves through the front door. Out in the open air once more, he takes a lungful of air. He nods to Dimitri in the car parked opposite, and then he rings Erin to fill her in on his visit with the Russians.

* * *

Harry is in a taxi on his way home when he calls Ruth.

"I've been so worried," she says, and he can detect a sharpness in her tone. "I was sure you were on a small plane, half way to Moscow."

Harry feels like laughing, but to Ruth, the day has not been one to elicit laughter. She has been worried, just as he'd have been beside himself had their roles been reversed. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow," he says wearily. "In the end, it added up to not very much at all. I think our Russian friends have gone soft."

"These people are not our friends, Harry."

"I know. I just want to enjoy an early dinner, and then curl up in bed next to you. I don't want to even think about this until I've had at least seven hours sleep."

So that is what he does, and despite her need to know more, Ruth is glad that Harry is home, and safe ... with her.


	18. Chapter 18

**~ Honesty ~**

"And that's about it," Harry says, having told Ruth everything he can remember about his conversation with Elena Gavrik.

They are sitting in their back garden, and while the air has a chill to it, the sun is shining, and they agree that they need to make the most of the sunshine before autumn brings grey skies and plummeting temperatures. Were they still working at Thames House, they'd have little idea about the weather outside the building. Only now can Harry see what an unhealthy environment his former work place was.

"It sounds like she sees the job they're doing as a retirement project," Ruth comments, once Harry has finished talking.

He smiles into her eyes. He is happy that Ruth is with him, and that she loves him. He considers himself a lucky man. "That's a good way of describing it. I was surprised ... shocked even, that she didn't even attempt to deny it. She seemed proud of her involvement, although Mother Teresa she's not."

Ruth drops her eyes to her mug of coffee. Should she? What if Harry laughs at her? What if he scoffs? "Since you told me about her," she begins carefully, "I've been worried you'd meet Elena."

"I'd been worried I'd meet her, too, Ruth, but likely not for the same reasons as you. She's a devious woman, prone to using the people around her ... just as she once used me, and she's not fussy who she uses, or how. She even used her son in an attempt to get me to extract her. At the time I knew her, I believed I loved her, but with the wisdom of hindsight, I now believe I loved the person I wanted her to be ... the person she pretended to be when she was with me."

"She's an opportunist," Ruth suggests, already feeling much lighter, less troubled.

"Completely. She's a spy-for-life, and there are not many who can lay claim to that."

"Are you a spy-for-life?" Ruth asks carefully.

Harry shakes his head. "I have no idea. I'd like to think not, but I won't know until I leave the business behind me once and for all."

Ruth is not about to ask him when that might be. That would not be fair. As they are now, Harry is still a spy, but one who works part time. Perhaps in a few years he will retire, and only then will he know whether he is capable of walking away from Intelligence, and living his life as a normal person.

"What?" he asks gently, knowing that Ruth has been thinking about him, and is bound to have come to some kind of conclusion.

"I agree with you," she says. "It is only once you no longer have to do the job that you'll know whether you can live your life as the person you are."

* * *

Much later in the day they are preparing the evening meal together. Ruth is chopping and slicing vegetables, while Harry is browning chicken breasts in a frypan. Each are concentrating on their tasks, while still being very aware of the other.

"I was really worried," Ruth says at last, glancing up to see Harry turning to look her way.

"Yesterday?"

Ruth nods. "I tried to imagine you meeting the Colonel, and the only outcome I could imagine was him tying you up and beating you. I spent most of the afternoon hoping you were strong enough and fit enough to survive the beating I was sure he was about to dish out."

Harry adds stock to the chicken pieces, turns down the heat, and covers the pan with a lid. Only then does he turn around, leaning against the counter top beside the cooker, his hands resting on the bench either side of him. He knows that he must be sensitive to Ruth's fears for him. It would be so easy to deflect her worries, and to declare himself indestructible. To take that approach would be unfair to Ruth. She lost her father when still a child, then she lost him when she had to go into exile. On her return to London, her partner was shot and killed. Of course she'd been worried about him. Of course she was only able to imagine the day ending with him being hurt, or perhaps killed.

"Had I thought my life could be in danger, Ruth, I would never have gone to meet Sasha."

"How is it possible to trust a man you'd only known as a child?"

"I never said I trusted him, but I know where he comes from. I know how his parents think. These people are very strong mentally, and they create their lives from what it is they believe." He waits a long moment to allow Ruth to absorb what he is saying. "They would only have done me harm had they believed me to be dangerous to them. They knew I'd been let go from the Intelligence Service, so I'm ... not to be taken seriously. To hurt me would be deemed by them an act of cowardice. I am now viewed as a lightweight."

"But you're not a lightweight."

"You know that, and I know that, but they don't, so ... I thought that gave me some advantage over them."

"That was risky."

"I know it was, but I thought it was worth it to enter their territory, and to see how far I could push them. In a way, meeting Elena was a gift. She's a woman with an over-inflated ego. She's devious, incredibly competitive, and absolutely not to be trusted, but I know how to shake her confidence." Again, he watches Ruth for a long moment. "I can guarantee she'll have been spending all today devising a story to tell the Colonel, and then Ilya. No doubt she'll be playing each man off against the other. That's how she works, how she thinks."

Ruth is not sure she wants to hear any more about how well Harry knows Elena. She sounds like a piece of work, and how he could ever have slept with the woman bewilders her. Ruth also wonders how much of what Harry is telling her is to reassure her, and how much is to convince himself that he knew what he was doing. She suspects that being faced with Elena had put Harry onto the back foot, and only his instincts, as well as his knowledge of her, had saved him.

Still, Ruth is pleased about one thing. "I need to thank you," she begins carefully, not offering him eye contact, at least, not yet.

"For what?"

"For being honest with me. For not glossing over what happened. For admitting to your shortcomings. For telling me things about Elena Gavrik I'd rather not have known."

"Such as?"

"Everything. Every time you mention her name, a part of me shrivels up and wants to hide. She is not my favourite topic of conversation."

Harry watches her closely, but she is avoiding eye contact. "You have no need to fear Elena," he says quietly.

"I know that," Ruth replies. "It's what she could do to you that worries me."

"Why?"

"Because you're vulnerable where women are concerned, Harry, even women you no longer love."

He hadn't expected her to say that. He doesn't know whether to deflect her comment, or to feel insulted. "I am only truly vulnerable where you are concerned, Ruth."

"And your daughter."

"Of course. Catherine, as well."

"And were your ex-wife to be in danger, I don't expect you to sit around and watch."

"No, I'd ... try to help her."

"And when you were section head, the women on your team ... such as Ros Myers, were equally as important to you as any woman like me."

Harry sighs heavily, and breaks eye contact with her, glancing across to where the contents of the frypan have come to the boil. He stands up straight, turning, and reaching out to turn the burner down to low. Only then does he face Ruth, who has watched him the whole time.

"Was that a low blow, Harry?" she asks, holding his eyes.

"It was close, but you have a point. I don't have to be in love with a woman to make foolish decisions in the quest to protect or rescue her."

Ruth nods. She feels satisfied, even happy with his answer Perhaps she has been pushing him just to test him ... to test whether he's capable of being truthful with her; after all, she'd prefer the truth rather than him providing an answer she might like to hear. "Thank you," she says, just loud enough for him to have heard.

"For what?"

"You know why."

He does, of course, and as much as Ruth has been pushing him, goading him, he has been testing himself, to see whether he is capable of laying himself bare to those he loves. He had done it with Graham, and now he's done it with Ruth.

"This is all I want from you, Harry," she says, slowly covering the space between them. "I don't need heroics, and I definitely don't want you throwing your life away to prove how much you love me. If you truly love me you'll live for me. If you care enough about me, you'll still be here, cooking our chicken, in twenty years."

Harry nods. "I do get it, Ruth."

Ruth has reached him, and she rests her palms on his chest. Standing on tiptoe, she reaches up to place a soft kiss on his lips. He leans into her, keeping the kiss going for several seconds. "I know you do," she says, once she tries to step away from him, but finds his hands are on her waist. "Now, unhand me," she says, smiling. "These celery sticks won't chop themselves."

* * *

Much later that evening, Harry has been sitting in the living room with the TV on, but with the sound muted, while he reads. Ruth had disappeared straight after they'd tidied their dinner things, so she is either in bed, or in the office.

He finds her in the office, hunched over her laptop. She doesn't even look up when he quietly enters the room.

"Everything all right?" he asks, sitting in the chair next to her desk.

"Mmm," is all she says, as she continues searching through a folder of photographs.

"Ruth?"

This time she stops, turns towards him, and appears surprised to see him. "Sorry. I received a file from Orlando. There are around two hundred images here of Elena and Sasha Gavrik, plus Igor Zhukov. All images have been gathered over the past eleven days."

"From CCTV?" Harry asks.

"Most are, but not all. Some rather interesting images have been taken from the roofs of buildings around London. It appears a telephoto lens was used."

"And?"

"Would you like to look through them?"

"Not especially," Harry answers, partly because he doesn't want to spend another half hour in looking at images of three Russians, and partly in case Ruth is still testing him. The truth is that he hopes to never again set eyes on Elena Gavrik, even digital images of her. "Perhaps you can summarise for me, Ruth."

She swivels her chair so that she faces him, and Harry is sure he can see the beginnings of a smile on her lips.

"We-ell," she says, resting her forearms on the armrests of her chair, "you dodged a bullet when you left Elena in Berlin. It appears that Mrs Gavrik enjoys shopping. She shops most days, and not at budget stores, either; she's been seen in King's Road, Bond Street, Knightsbridge, and Mayfair. And Sasha has at least three different women, each of whom he visits at least once a week. It's when I've been searching through the images - and the locations - of Colonel Zhukov that the story gets interesting."

"So he's not sleeping with Elena?"

"I have no idea who he's sleeping with, but there are at least four different locations where he has stayed for hours at a time."

"Do we know who he sees ... what he might be up to?"

"Almost all the images we have of Zhukov are of him getting into a car, and then leaving it to enter a building, so I'm having to make a list of locations, and the duration of his visits at these locations. He has also met an unidentified man in the same park on at least two occasions. Tariq suspects the man to be American. _But_ ..." she says with emphasis, "added to that, he has been seen visiting the US Embassy twice in the past eleven days, and that ..."

"... represents a pattern," Harry finishes for her.

Ruth nods. "I'm afraid it does."

"Was he accompanied?" Harry asks.

"Not when he visited the US Embassy, which ..."

".. either means the others don't know, or they have sent him on their behalf."

"Why would Elena and Sasha want him to visit the US Embassy?"

Harry breaks eye contact while he ponders her question. When he looks back to her, his face is serious. "Given the Russian visit to London is meant to be away from the eyes and ears of the Americans, that can only mean one thing," he says quietly.

"That Elena and Sasha don't know," and Ruth pauses while she holds Harry's gaze, "and that he is visiting US territory without their knowledge." She sighs while she stares at the floor, before again lifting her gaze to Harry. "Which probably means he is acting alone, and definitely not in the best interests of his home country."

Harry looks away. There is only one conclusion to be made. He doesn't speak for a long moment, and when he turns back to Ruth, his words are few. "The Colonel needs to watch his back," is all he says.


	19. Chapter 19

**~ Staying Safe ~**

Three days later - Tuesday afternoon:

"You can't do that, Harry. Remember what it was you promised me."

Not only do her words stop him, but Ruth has pulled her hand from his grasp. With Ruth having decided to end her working day early, they are taking a walk to the park. Without knowing why, Harry stops walking, waiting until Ruth also stops, turning around to glare at him.

"You promised me you'd not do anything which might be risky to your life," she says curtly, her face conveying her deep displeasure.

"I don't think Igor Zhukov is dangerous, Ruth."

With his words, the fight goes out of Ruth, and her shoulders slump, and she drops her gaze, letting out an audible sigh. "You know what I mean," she says, slowly walking back to his side, gazing up at him, her eyes silently pleading with him. When he doesn't answer, she looks down, her silence telling him that she is thinking deeply. "Zhukov is an unknown, Harry, and we suspect he heads the ... operation .. the people smuggling. People engaged in that sort of thing are - well - they're different from the rest of us. They'll do anything to protect their interests."

Harry smiles. He's not used to having someone care this much about his life, his safety. It's a nice feeling, leaving him with a warm glow burning deep inside him, and as upset as Ruth appears, he's enjoying having her worrying about him, imagining something terrible happening to him were he to meet with Zhukov. He likes it that she loves him in this way, a way that mere words cannot convey. For a moment he feels ridiculously happy, and he can't help the chuckle which bubbles up from deep in his throat.

"It's not funny," Ruth says defensively.

"I know it's not. I'm just happy that you ... care for me this much."

"Of course I care for you, you stupid man."

Harry reaches out to take her hand, and she lets him, and so they continue their amble towards the park. He knows her well enough to recognise her apparent anger as an outcome of her fear for his safety. They have only been together a short time, and so she is not yet prepared to lose him. He gets that.

* * *

"I now have a plan," Harry says quietly, leaning closer to Ruth, who pulls away from him so that she can see his face. They are sitting on the bench from which they have a clear view of the gate. Sitting on the bench on the opposite side of the pond are two young women, each with a pram, which they push backwards and forwards in a parallel rhythm. No sound comes from the prams; the women appear to be deep in conversation.

"So long as you won't be meeting Zhukov, I'm prepared to give your plan the seal of approval."

Again Harry smiles, gazing down into her face, resisting the urge to kiss her ... in full view of two young mothers and their deathly quiet offspring.

"Promise me you won't say anything until I've finished telling you what I plan to do, and why."

Ruth nods, although she appears wary, like she believes he is trying to trick her.

"My plan is," Harry begins carefully, leaning his face close to hers, "to find out from Tariq - via Erin - Zhukov's usual movements, and when he has a window in his day, I'll message him, asking him to meet me .."

"Harry .."

"I'll not be meeting him, of course, but a field team from Section D will surround the meeting place -"

"Which is?"

"The very same park in which he's been seen with the unidentified man."

"Shouldn't we trying to identify this man Zhukov has been meeting?"

"All in good time, Ruth," he says, gazing down into her eyes, above which a frown puckers her brow. "I've deliberately chosen an open space for the meeting ... which I'll not be keeping, but hopefully the team can identify those he has protecting him."

"If any."

"I'm sure he has at least two people watching him, especially if he's the head honcho in the people smuggling operation."

"I can't believe I haven't been sent a request to identify the man Zhukov has been meeting in the park," Ruth muses.

"Then send that as a suggestion. I'm sure the team on the Grid has enough to do without chasing down the identity of Zhukov's ... friend ..."

".. or enemy."

* * *

They sit in silence for a long time, each lost inside thoughts they are not yet ready to be sharing with the other. While Ruth's mind is whirring through the possibilities which will ensure Harry will not be tempted to turn up to meet Zhukov, Harry is wondering whether his spying days are over. While working as a section head, safely ensconced in his office, he could do what he does best - organising others to do the messy jobs, relying on Ruth's insight and brilliance, while all the while knowing that his leadership could only ever be as strong as the weakest member of his team. Harry knows he is no longer a field agent. He can only go into the field when he is accompanied by someone young and fit ... someone like Dimitri Levendis.

 _Dimitri_. Why hadn't he thought of him earlier?

"I just had a -" Harry begins.

"I was thinking -" Ruth says quietly, before looking up into Harry's eyes, to see them twinkling.

"Snap," he says. "Great minds."

"You don't know what I was about to say," Ruth says.

"No, but whatever it was, you had the thought at the very same moment I had mine."

Ruth smiles, glancing down at her hands, which are quietly resting in her lap. "You go first," she says.

"I'd rather hear what you have to say first. It's sure to be ... more brilliant than my idea."

"I thought that while you make the appointment for yourself with Zhukov, it might suit our purpose better were one of the field agents to meet him. I thought that Dimitri might fit the bill." Harry reaches down, and surprises Ruth by kissing her. It is a quick touch of his lips on hers. "What was that for?" she asks.

"For reading my mind," he says, "word for word."

"You thought of the same idea ... that Dimitri should meet the Colonel?"

"You know," Harry says, sitting back on the bench, "having Dimitri meet this man will kill several birds with one stone."

"So long as Dimitri walks away unscathed."

A sudden squall from one of the prams draws their attention back to the two women sitting across the duck pond.

"The ducks are back," Harry comments, choosing to ignore the sound of the other baby having woken, it's cry joining the other infant's.

"You know," Ruth says, her voice low and intimate as she leans closer to Harry, "while I was away ... in exile .. I sometimes felt sad that we hadn't got together sooner, and maybe had a child together." Harry holds his breath, hoping Ruth is not about to suggest what he thinks she might be about to suggest. "But now we are together, I can't help thinking that we're much better off never having had children. As I observe them, and as entranced as their parents seem to be by them, they seem like a lot of work," and she pauses as she nods towards the two young women and their babies, "especially at that age ... before they have the language to convey exactly what it is upsetting them."

Harry doesn't know what to say to that. For a woman who had spent years turning away from him, she has certainly taken him by surprise.

"What do you think?" Ruth asks, this time turning to look at him.

"I've always thought I was too old to have more children. Besides, I wasn't always present for my own children. I haven't exactly been stellar in that department."

Recognising his discomfort, Ruth drops the subject. "I suppose we should go back," she says, glancing across to where the two women are about to leave the park, their babies quiet once more. "I need to send an email through to the Grid. The sooner we get someone on the ground to meet the Colonel, the sooner ... well, you know what I mean."

He does. Harry stands, reaching out to grasp Ruth's hand.

* * *

Later - Tuesday evening:

Harry is sitting in what he considers to be the most comfortable armchair in the living room, reading glasses perched on his nose, a book open on his knees. The history of feudal England, while fascinating to him on most days, on this evening is failing to draw him in. After dinner he had offered to tidy the kitchen while Ruth retired to the office, keen to set her plan in motion. While his eyes are on the page open in front of him, his mind is upstairs with Ruth, wondering whether Erin and the team would be open to her suggestion.

Just for something to do (so he tells himself), Harry puts his book aside, and crosses to the sideboard, where he keeps his bottles of whiskey. Just a small one before bed, he tells himself, although the truth is that he needs it to settle his growing anxiety. There is something about this whole Russian situation which leaves him uneasy, and it's much more than his history with the Gavriks.

He is just about to pour the last of his glass of whiskey down his throat when he hears footsteps in the hallway, and then Ruth enters the living room. He looks up to see that she is smiling.

"Not only does Erin like the idea of Dimitri meeting Zhukov, but earlier today Dimitri suggested that very thing to her."

Harry notes how Ruth's eyes shine brightly whenever her work engages her fully. "That's good news," he says, patting the chair beside his.

"I'll pour myself a wine," she says, pointing towards the kitchen.

Harry recognises how much he is enjoying working and living with Ruth. Maybe it's only a few days since he'd moved in, but already they appear to be working together with the precision of a Swiss time piece, and provided he doesn't take risks, then there is little reason for that not to continue.

When Ruth returns, she carries a wine glass, half filled with white wine, and a small plate of feta cheese cubes and stuffed olives, placing them on the small table between their two chairs.

"I sent a message to Tariq via Calum regarding the person Zhukov has been meeting. Tariq has promised to isolate his best image of the man, and send it through ... hopefully before we head to bed tonight."

"Tariq's still at work?"

"Of course. So is Calum and Erin. At the same time they're attending to my requests, there was a scare today at a public school in North London."

"Do you have details?"

Ruth shakes her head. "It's nothing to do with us, Harry. Calum suggested it was a chemistry experiment gone wrong -"

"Likely story."

"That's what I said. I didn't suggest they check out the chemistry teacher. I'm hoping they might be able to work that out for themselves."

They sit quietly, all talk of work pushed aside. They both know how important it is to create a clear boundary between their professional roles, and the personal. Without that, both stand to suffer.

Hearing the message tone on her phone, Ruth checks it before heading back upstairs. Harry watches her leave the room, knowing that the curiosity would be too distracting were she to ignore the message.

Harry pours himself another whiskey, a small one this time, and is back in his chair, slowly sipping his drink, when Ruth returns from upstairs, a sheet of A4 paper in her hand. She is frowning slightly as she gazes at the image in front of her.

"No-one has had time to do a facial analysis, but the consensus seems to be that he's American," she says, handing the image to Harry, "and it's also quite possible he's the person Zhukov has been seeing at the US Embassy."

He turns the image the right way up before staring at the face, blurry and indistinct, the photograph having been captured from a distance, and then enlarged. " _Jesus,_ " he says. "I thought the CIA had given him the shove.

"He's CIA?"

"He was. When I knew him he held quite an elevated position in the organisation."

"Does this man have a name?" Ruth says, wondering why Harry is keeping that detail to himself.

"He does," he says quietly. "He and I had some ... issues back around three or four years ago. His name is Bob Hogan."


	20. Chapter 20

**~ Finding Zhukov ~**

Two days later - Thursday afternoon:

"I don't like this, Harry," Ruth says, chewing her bottom lip, "I don't like it one bit."

"I know you don't, but I know Bob, and I know his weaknesses," Harry says, pulling his jacket straight at the front. "Besides, he doesn't know it's me he's meeting." When Ruth glances up at him, he explains. "Erin made the appointment with him. He believes he's meeting the new section head of Section D."

Ruth nods. "Clever," before her eyes roam over his attire. "I think you look a little too ... casual," she says after long moments of scrutiny.

"Thank you. That is my intention. Bob is still in the thick of things, while he will view me as retired, and so not to be taken seriously. He will no longer view me as someone who once threatened to torture him. I am handing him the superior role, from where he just might say more than he intends."

Harry turns to leave, when Ruth grasps the sleeve of his jacket. "Don't I even get a kiss?"

He leans down to place a quick kiss on her lips. "Sorry. My mind is on the job."

"I suppose that's a good thing," Ruth muses quietly as he close the front door behind him. She'd wanted to remind him to be careful, but knowing Harry, he'd take that as an insult.

Ruth makes a fresh mug of tea, and takes it upstairs, where she gathers the equipment she needs to link her audio to the Grid's system, something she'd insisted upon were Harry to again venture into the field. If something happens to him, she doesn't especially want to be the last to know about it.

She fiddles with her USB lead, for some strange reason forgetting which port it fits into, all the while suppressing a bubble of irritation, which is building towards anger. She knows Harry is in denial, although she'd not dare tell him that. He believes he can go off into the field to meet anyone at all, hoping his spy instincts will kick in when required. He is not the spy he once was, and she hopes he's not about to find that out the hard way.

The ringtone of her mobile phone drags her back to the task at hand.

"The audio is set up, and you appear to be connected," she hears Calum say.

"Can I speak to Erin?" Ruth asks.

"Sorry, no. Erin is visiting the deputy ambassador at the US embassy."

 _Really?_ "Can I ask why?"

Ruth can almost hear Calum shrugging. "Something to do with this Russian dude visiting the embassy. She thought she'd go right to the top for answers."

Ruth sighs. She thinks Erin would do better were she to remain in her office. "Is Harry connected to the audio hook-up?"

"Not yet. He'll connect when he gets to his destination."

 _Oh, great._

* * *

Erin Watts notices the tall, sturdily built man striding along the corridor towards her. When he is closer she recognises him as Colonel Igor Zhukov, and she is temporarily distracted by his clear, light blue eyes. She watches him until he is almost level with her, when she drops her eyes to walk up three steps towards the corridor leading to the offices of the Ambassador and Deputy Ambassador. Zhukov, who appears to have come from that very direction, is looking beyond Erin, and appears to not see her.

 _Interesting_ , Erin thinks. Why would a retired colonel from the Russian military have reason to speak to the US Ambassador ... or even the Deputy Ambassador? She can think of no valid reason.

And why does he carry a battered leather briefcase in one hand?

* * *

Just as he enters the covered garden at the back of the pub, Harry turns on his audio. After ducking to avoid an overhanging grape vine, across the garden he spies the profile of a middle-aged man with a receding hairline contemplating the almost empty lager glass in his hand. The slant of the head, the jut of his chin is familiar to Harry. Even when unaware he is being observed, Bob Hogan is presenting himself as a man comfortable in his own skin, ready to take on the world. Of course it's all posturing. Bob Hogan is no longer with the CIA; he is acting from habit.

"Bob," Harry says, as he reaches the table. The shock on the American's face as he recognises Harry's voice is worth the cost of his taxi fare.

Bob quickly recovers from the surprise, briefly standing to shake Harry's hand. "Harry ... take a seat," he says smoothly, "I'll get you a drink. Whiskey, is it?"

Harry shakes his head. "I'll get this one. Another lager for you?"

"Mine's a Becks Draught," Bob says.

By the time Harry again joins Bob at the table, the American has regained his composure. "So, Harry," he says, lifting his glass in a mock toast, "they kicked you out."

"They did," Harry replies, carefully watching the other man.

"So why are we meeting? Surely it can't be so we can commiserate with one another."

"I heard you're no longer with the Agency," Harry says, carefully placing his glass on the coaster in front of him.

"That's old news. It's coming up three years now since I left, but ... I still have contacts, and life is good."

Harry knows that the truth is Bob was ` let go' from the CIA, and is probably lucky to be alive, and wandering the streets of London a free man. At least he knows that were they being watched, the watchers would have their eyes trained on Bob, and not him.

"So .." Bob continues, "how is life after Mi5?"

"Best thing that ever happened to me," Harry says, his eyes on his whiskey glass.

"The word on the ground is that you committed treason to save the life of a woman." Word does get around, but then again, Bob always was the nosy kind. "That's some act of love, Harry."

"She's the best intelligence analyst I've ever had."

Bob leans back in his chair, giving himself room for a good belly laugh. He gazes around the garden, one eyebrow lifted. "That's the best excuse I've heard in a while," he says.

Harry gives the man time to bring his hilarity under control. He's almost sure Bob knows more than he's letting on, but Harry no longer cares. This meeting is not a catch up.

"The team at Thames House have had their eye on a Russian called Colonel Igor Zhukov," Harry says, the words sliding out quietly, so that Bob lifts his eyes, a hint of warning in them. "It appears you've met him at least twice. He doesn't seem the type to be your friend, so I was wondering ..."

Harry waits while Bob Hogan squirms in his seat, although to the passing observer it would appear he's making himself more comfortable. "I suppose you know why that is," Bob says quietly, his eyes not quite meeting Harry's.

"There are several possibilities, one of which involves corruption at every level. I imagine you'd not be interested in that kind of thing ... would you, Bob?"

Bob smiles, and only for a split second does his smile settle on Harry. "I'm not that foolish," he replies, "but he is meeting me for a reason ... a reason which has nothing at all to do with British Intelligence. I'm assuming you still work for them, Harry. They'd have to be stupid as well as arrogant to let your expertise go to waste .. especially your expertise at getting other agents to talk."

This time it is Harry who smiles as he lifts his glass of whiskey to his lips, his attention fully on the liquid within. He takes a sip, and then returns the glass to its coaster before he again looks at the American. "Well spotted," he says quietly, "and the same to you, except I'm sure you're no longer working for or with the CIA."

"True. I do a bit of this, and a bit of that."

Suddenly, as though a light bulb had gone off in his head, Harry knows why Hogan has been meeting the Russian in secret, away from the gaze of both Elena and Sasha. The answer is quite simple, and has been sitting in front of him all along. "I thought there were already enough Russians in the US," he says quietly.

This time Bob turns to look right into Harry's eyes, and Harry is sure he reads admiration in the other man's gaze. "You still have it, Harry. Perhaps love sharpens your senses. I know it has whenever I've been struck by Cupid's arrow."

"So when does Zhukov leave?" Harry asks, not really expecting an answer.

"He'll be in his new apartment in New York by midnight tomorrow night, and on Monday morning he's been booked in to have plastic surgery."

"That's a trifle ... extreme."

"Not when he owes a shitload of money to half of your parliamentary representatives."

"Gambling?" Harry asks, his voice low.

Hogan nods. "And women, and boys, and his aged mother in a smart apartment in Moscow, and that's only half of it. That Gavrik woman has someone watching him, so ... we're having to act quickly."

Bob and his cronies - the ex-CIA crowd - have never been known for their benevolence. "So .." Harry begins, "what do _you_ get out of it?"

"Zhukov's extradition?" Harry nods. "Anything I want. Zhukov still has at least ten to fifteen good years left in him, and he's been an insider in Russian politics since before Mikhail Gorbachev became President of the USSR in 1990. He already knows that were he not to cooperate, he'll be dead within hours ... and if we don't take him out, then the Russians will. As things stand at the moment, the US finds him more valuable than do the Russians."

And that is the way it is done, the way it has always been done. There is no sentiment, and little honour in the spying game. People are only as valuable as what they can do today; tomorrow that could all change.

Harry has a sudden urge to see Ruth, so he curtly thanks Hogan, shaking the man's hand before he stands and leaves. Not until Harry is in the back of a taxi does he call Ruth. "Did you get all of that?" he asks, without even offering her a greeting.

"I did," she says. "He rolled over rather nicely for you."

"Not really," Harry murmurs. "He knows ... that we know that the Gavriks without the Colonel are like a headless snake, and less likely to create difficulties for us. For mine, we can stop watching Hogan, although perhaps we still need to keep tabs on Elena and Sasha."

"I'll send that suggestion through. Dimitri is due to meet Zhukov tomorrow morning. Do you think he'll turn up?"

"Not a chance. Why would he?"

And that is that. The Russians are (almost) out of their hair.

* * *

Next Morning - Friday:

Dimitri had waited twenty minutes for Zhukov to appear, but he'd not shown. Tariq has surmised that the man will be catching a late afternoon flight to New York, and so why would he want to meet an agent from Mi5? Dimitri glances quickly to the park bench around eighty metres away, where Ali Mustafa, seeing him glancing his way, adjusts the tie on his ponytail, the signal to abort the meeting. Dimitri is annoyed at Zhukov's no show, especially since he'd gone to the trouble of wearing a suit for the occasion.

Two aborted appointments in two days is perhaps two too many for Erin. The US Deputy Ambassador had been especially closed about the meetings he'd had with Colonel Zhukov, even going so far as to deny having met the man. Thanks to Harry's meeting with a former CIA agent, Erin is now almost certain that Zhukov is busily packing, or whatever it is people do when they're about to skip the country unseen.

Tariq has set up electronic contact with the passenger lists of all commercial flights out of the UK between midday and midnight, so hopefully something will come of that. He has also accessed all calls to and from the phones of Zhukov, Elena and Sasha. By late morning, he notices something odd, so he knocks on the door of the office of the section head. Tariq still experiences mild shock each time he is called into the office to see Erin sitting in Harry's chair.

When Tariq enters her office, Erin is speed-reading the morning's emails. "Tariq?" she says, pointing to the spare chair.

Tariq chooses to remain standing. He is not altogether comfortable in Erin's presence. He much prefers Harry's volatility to Erin's cool, emotionless demeanour. "I thought you might want to know that there has been no activity on Zhukov's phone since around ten-thirty last night."

Erin glances up, and Tariq is sure he reads surprise in her eyes. "Nothing at all?"

"No messages, calls, emails .. Nothing, either in or out."

"Then you know what to do next, Tariq."

"Locate the phone?" Erin nods, and smiles. Tariq doesn't trust her smile ... not one bit. "Already done," he says. He places a post-it note on the desk, so that Erin can read it. "This is the address where his phone has been since late last night."

"And it hasn't been anywhere since?"

Tariq shakes his head. "It's a housing estate in Hounslow."

"Do we know anyone there?" Erin asks.

"Not that I know of. Perhaps we should ..."

Again Erin smiles. "I'll send someone," she says quickly.

"That's not all," Tariq adds. "When I found no sign of the phones used by Elena and Sasha Gavrik, I checked the air traffic from the private airfield used by the Gavrik family. It seems both remaining Gavriks left London for Moscow on an early morning flight."

"Was Zhukov with them?"

Tariq shakes his head, and watches as Erin composes her next statement. "I thought we were watching them," she says, mostly to herself.

"I ... think our agents were needed elsewhere ... to do with that ... school thing in North London. It seems to have ... escalated."

Erin nods, but she is distracted, so Tariq quickly leaves the office. Outside in the corridor, he lets out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

* * *

Harry and Ruth, each with a mug of coffee in front of them, are enjoying the afternoon sunshine in their back garden.

"We need to shop," Harry says, watching her closely. "I thought we might walk there ... together."

Ruth smiles across the table at him, but he can tell her thoughts are elsewhere. "Just before you called me to lunch Erin sent me an email, just to keep us both up to speed." She runs her fingertips up and down the handle of her coffee mug before she continues. "Both Elena and Sasha Gavrik have flown back to Moscow, and Zhukov appears to be in a flat in Hounslow."

"Why would he be there?"

"I've no idea, although given what Bob Hogan told you, he may have already left London for New York, and simply left his phone somewhere ... to put everyone off the scent."

"That sounds about right." Being honest, Harry is sick of the Russians, and wishes they'd all leave London, never to return. "I've been thinking .." he says quietly, his eyes on Ruth, who glances up at him, "that if nothing else is on the agenda the weekend after next we could invite Graham for dinner. I'll cook."

"We can both cook," Ruth says quickly. "I _can_ cook, you know."

Harry grins. "I know. I'm quite enjoying cooking ... now that I have the time."

Ruth has just opened her mouth to reply to him, when they hear a phone ringing from the kitchen. "That sounds like yours," she says.

Harry is already on his feet, mumbling about having their time together interrupted. "It's like they can see through walls," he says, before picking up the phone, and answering with a bark.

Ruth has one ear on his phone call, but he says very little. When he returns to the table in the back garden, it is slowly, and his face gives nothing away. "That was Calum Reid," he says, returning to his chair. "He and Ali Mustafa just visited the flat in a housing estate in Hounslow. Not only did they find Zhukov's phone, but they also found Zhukov."

"Alive?"

Harry shakes his head. "One bullet through the back of his head, execution style."

Ruth sits back and sighs. The outcome is not so surprising, really. "Any idea who might have done it?"

"I imagine the list of suspects would stretch around the block several times," he says quietly.

Ruth nods. The person who has murdered Zhukov could be anyone at all, although there are two likely suspects at the top of her list.

* * *

 _ **A/N : The final chapter of this story will be posted next weekend.**_


	21. Chapter 21

_**~ A Future ~**_

Two weeks later - Saturday morning:

Ruth rolls on to her side to watch Harry as he sleeps. Mornings, especially on weekends, are always good for them. They are both relaxed, and as long as their phones don't ring, the weekend is all their own to do as they wish. On this morning Ruth had woken early, leaving the bed to cross the hallway to the office to check her emails .. just in case. There had been only one email ... the email she had been waiting for these past two weeks. On returning to their bed, she had leaned over Harry to kiss him awake, but he'd been well ahead of her, wrapping his arms around her to pull her against him, kissing her with a growl from deep in his throat.

"You've been waiting for me?" she asked once they'd taken a breath.

"Mmmm," he'd said, kissing her again. "I know you well enough to pounce when you have something to tell me."

Ruth had lifted her face away from him, staring into his eyes. "So ... this ... kissing you do ... when I return from the office .. is ... a ploy?"

"And a successful one, I'd say," he'd replied, "since it works every time," and he'd pulled her down onto the bed with him, rolling her over so that he was on top.

Their lovemaking had been vigorous and passionate, and afterwards Harry had fallen asleep, and fifteen minutes later he is still asleep. Ruth doesn't quite know what to do. She longs to share with him the contents of the email, but she doesn't want to wake him before he's ready to be woken. She watches him for a minute or so, and has just opened her mouth to speak, when he beats her to it.

"Tell me, Ruth," he mumbles, his eyes still closed. "You know you want to."

"How did you know?"

He opens his eyes slowly, a smile on his lips, lifting his hand to point to one of his eyes. "Transparent eyelids," he says. "All the best spies have them."

One thing which surprises Ruth about living with Harry is how readily his sense of the ridiculous bubbles up from inside him. She'd already known how much fun he'd found in the everyday things, like how seriously others - particularly politicians - take themselves. What she hadn't known, since she'd never let him close enough to her to find out, was how light-hearted he can be, and how he delights in the small things. Harry is not always a grouch, and since leaving the service, his sour moods seem to (almost) have left him.

"What is it you're dying to tell me, Ruth?" he asks at last.

She rolls away from him, sitting on the edge of the bed. "When you come downstairs," she says.

"What time is it?"

Ruth turns to look at him. "Breakfast time."

* * *

They are both sitting at the kitchen table, gazing through the glass doors at the light rain falling. Ruth had cooked bacon and eggs for them both, while Harry had made a pot of coffee.

"So .." he says, putting down his coffee, and linking his fingers while resting his hands on the table, his eyes on Ruth. He has no need to say any more; she knows what he means.

"Erin sent an email," she begins, "and in it are the results of the autopsy on Zhukov. He was shot at close range by a firearm which was most likely a PSS silent pistol ... one dating back to the Soviet era. The firearm has not been found, and in all likelihood is back in Russia with its owner. Given the trajectory of the bullet, the shooter was shorter than Zhukov by around four inches ... or ten centimetres. That would put the gunman at around five feet eleven, or thereabouts -"

"Which eliminates Elena," Harry muses, "who would have been at the top of my list of suspects."

Ruth drops her eyes, just in case, at the mention of Elena's name, a shadow of pain is visible in her eyes. She knows she has no need for jealousy. It is clear to her that Harry loves her, and perhaps had been in lust with Elena, rather than love, but any mention of Elena's name still has her wondering about the woman, and whether she was good in bed, and whether Harry still wanders back in his mind to his encounters with her. Was she a tigress in bed? Did she know what turned him on? There are still times when he appears to be a long way from her, his mind elsewhere. This is not one such time. Glancing up into his eyes she sees that he is watching her, waiting for her to join him in the moment.

"Elena is the consummate spy, Ruth. Were it to advance her needs in any way she'd not stop at killing her own son. She is an expert at faking emotion. She's a cold and unrepentant psychopath."

Ruth nods. She understands what Harry is saying. "I know," she says, "but it is unlikely to be her who killed Zhukov. I'm thinking that Sasha may be the only one of those who were in London who has ready access to such a weapon."

This time it is Harry who nods. "My bet is that Sasha pulled the trigger, but it was his mother who gave the order."

"Erin has sent the whole file on these people to Europol. It's now out of our hands."

"That's good," and Harry smiles.

"What is it?"

"We never have to speak of Elena or her family again, Ruth. I consider that to be a good thing."

Ruth considers it a very, _very_ good thing.

* * *

Since the rain appears to have set in they drive to the shops, wandering up and down the aisles of the supermarket together. Harry is a spontaneous and generous shopper. Before she'd shopped with him, she was certain he only ever headed to the wine and spirits section at the back of the shop, but he takes time over things like vegetables and sauces, and he's picky about cuts of meat. They have agreed that Graham might enjoy a roast dinner, so it's roast lamb, with jacket potatoes, roast parsnip and carrots, and canned peas. For sweets, Harry settles on a ready made cheesecake from Waitrose.

"Belgian Chocolate flavour," Harry had said, and so Ruth nods, hoping Graham likes chocolate as much as does his father.

"Do we need wine?" Ruth asks, aware that being a recovering addict, Harry's son may not appreciate them drinking.

"We always need wine," had been his definitive reply.

* * *

Graham arrives on time, and under his arm he carries a six pack of Stella Artois, handing it to Harry as he greets him at the door.

"I thought you didn't drink," Harry comments.

"I can handle beer. It's spirits I have to avoid. I don't know when to stop."

Harry lifts his eyebrows as he takes the beer from Graham. "I have the same problem with spirits."

He leads Graham down the hallway to the kitchen, where Ruth is basting the roast lamb before returning it to the oven to brown. She then stands, crossing the kitchen to where Graham stands awkwardly beside Harry. She could reach out her hand to shake his, or she could greet him as her partner's only son. She reaches out to him with her arms, and he smiles, returning the hug. When Ruth and Graham pull apart, she looks up at Harry to see him smiling. He offers her a nod of approval.

* * *

After they have eaten, Ruth excuses herself, and disappears upstairs.

"Does she find me that dull?" Graham suggests, not altogether seriously.

"I suspect she's giving us some space," Harry replies, piling their dishes on one side of the sink. "Another beer?" he asks, heading to the fridge.

"Just the one."

"I really like Ruth," Graham says carefully, avoiding eye contact with Harry.

"So do I," Harry replies, placing two opened lager bottles on the table.

"She ... suits you."

"My thoughts exactly," Harry says curtly, and for the time being, the topic of him and Ruth has been adequately dealt with.

Their conversation flows surprisingly easily, given there is so much Harry wants to know, but is too afraid to ask. Some topics are still too delicate, too fragile for open exploration, but his and Ruth's relationship seems to not be one of them.

"You know, I'd been thinking," Graham says at last, "whether you're afraid Ruth will find someone younger and more .. you know."

"That's rather direct of you," Harry says, deliberately avoiding his son's eyes. Graham can't possibly know that he's just put his finger squarely on one of his deepest irrational fears. "I suppose you mean what happens were she to find someone younger, and more ... suitable." When Graham nods, he continues carefully, his fingers sliding up and down the side of the beer bottle, providing him with some much needed focus. "Ruth and I are quite solid, Graham. We're not some passing thing."

He shares the bare bones of how Ruth had been in exile, returned, turned away from him, but eventually opening herself to him once more. Harry waits, wondering has he shared too much, when Graham speaks.

"So you've known one another - what - ten years?"

"Almost."

"That's epic. You're a lucky man, Dad, but what if she does find someone else?"

"Then as devastating as that would be, I'd let her go. There's always a chance she'll come back to me."

"Seriously?" Harry nods, watching him closely, so he continues. "Theo cheated on me," he says quietly. "If I can't trust someone, then I'd rather not be with them, so I ended it with him. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."

Harry nods. "I know."

Graham lifts his eyes to Harry, suddenly seeing the parallels of his own life with his father's, given how Harry had cheated on Jane. "Sorry," he says quickly, "I got a bit close to the bone there."

"I have no intention of that ever happening again," Harry says, "and I don't expect Ruth to have an affair."

Neither had heard Ruth descend the stairs, so that as she enters the kitchen, she catches the last few words Harry speaks. "I should think not," she says, heading to the fridge. "That's silly talk."

Once Ruth sits in the chair beside Harry, a glass of wine in front of her, Graham quietly explains. "I was just telling Dad how my last partner cheated on me."

"I'm sorry about your experience with him," Ruth replies, "but some people find it hard to be satisfied with the person they are with, and they're forever searching for something better. Harry and I know we're lucky to be together at last." She turns to look at Harry, who is gazing at her with love in his eyes. "Aren't we?"

All Harry can do is nod.

* * *

Graham leaves just before midnight, having given his body time to metabolise the two beers he'd drunk. Ruth had sat back while Harry and his son chewed the fat. She'd paid little attention to what they'd said, enjoying listening to two male voices in conversation, while she allowed her mind to wander through a subject she needed to bring up with Harry ... hopefully soon, before she loses her nerve.

At the front door, Graham hugs Ruth, and then Harry, and she notices how tightly Harry grasps his son. She calls a quick goodnight before returning to the kitchen, running hot water in the sink to wash the dishes.

"Leave that, Ruth," Harry says wearily, once he joins her. "There's always tomorrow, and I can do them in the morning."

"It's alright. I'd prefer to do them now."

She hears Harry sigh before grabbing a tea towel in preparation for drying the dishes. He stands close beside Ruth, waiting for the water to drain from the dinner plates.

"I thought tonight went well," he says after a silence of several minutes, and when Ruth doesn't offer any kind of answer, even a nod, he continues. "What do you think?"

"I think we should get married."

Harry had been about to grab another plate to dry, but her statement has him turning to stare at her, his hand in mid-grasp. "Pardon?" he says.

"You heard me."

He had, but Ruth has always been the one to deflect talk of marriage. Were such a thing legally possible, he'd marry her tomorrow, and Ruth knows that. He drops his hand, turning to watch her, willing her to look at him. Willing her doesn't work. "Ruth?" This time she turns, and he is surprised to see a hint of fear in her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"That I want to marry you?" Harry nods. "Nothing's wrong, Harry. It's something Graham said tonight over dinner. He said we should all value love when we find it, because we have no idea what tomorrow will bring."

"So you interpreted that morsel of wisdom to mean we should get married."

She nods, then drops her eyes, turning back to the dishes in the sink. "But if you've changed your mind, I'll accept that -"

"Ruth - look at me." Harry has dropped the tea towel over the dish drainer, taking a half step closer to her, reaching out to place his palm on her back. "Come here," he says, drawing her closer, one hand on her back, while with the fingers of his other hand he carefully turns her chin so that she must look at him. "Do you know how long I've waited for you to suggest marriage?" When she shakes her head, he accepts that he is the one who will have to do the talking. She had used up all her words by suggesting they get married. "I've waited such a long time, especially since asking you to marry me. I accept that my timing was .. awful, so I decided to let you be the one to decide a better time ... for readdressing the subject." His choice of words, formal and ever-practical, has Ruth's face relaxing in a wide smile. "What is it now?" he asks.

"You," she says, "it's you, Harry. It's how you talk when you're discussing something as important as marriage." She shakes her head, still smiling. "You can't imagine how much I love you."

Harry feels a surge of emotion from deep inside him, which he swallows before reaching down to kiss her on the lips. The kiss is gentle, and he only ends the kiss once he feels the tension leaving her body. He slowly draws away from her, reaching behind him to grasp her hands. "Ruth?"

When he hears Ruth utter a soft chuckle, he leans back to gaze into her eyes, playful and bright.

"You brought up the subject of marriage while wearing _marigolds_?" Ruth nods, smiling. "I can't believe you asked me to marry you while wearing wet, soapy marigolds."

"You still haven't given me an answer," she says quietly.

"But I have, Ruth. My answer was implicit. I said I'd waited so long for you to say those words, so ... of course I'll marry you."

Ruth nods, before turning towards the sink, placing space between them. "That's good," she says, busying herself with the sponge, dipping it in the water and sloshing it around until soap suds rise to the surface. "Today was a busy day, and there's still much to be done," she mutters to herself, before rinsing the plate under running water, and placing it in the dish drainer.

Harry nods, glancing at her quickly before once more arming himself with the tea towel. He imagines Ruth to have carried a mental list of tasks to be performed before bed - clear the table, suggest they get married, wash the dishes, clean teeth, get changed into pyjamas, then climb into bed.

"And just in case you're wondering," he says quietly, "I love you too." Again he glances towards her, but her attention is once more on the sink full of soapy water, and she is smiling her gentle, accepting smile. Harry Pearce knows he is a very lucky man, and he'd best not forget it.

* * *

 _ **A/N : Thanks to all who continued to read and review this fic. And the roast parsnips are for rahleeyah!**_


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